Republicans should put out a video directed at blue state law enforcement officers, telling them that their job is enforce the law, regardless of the fact that their mayors and governors might tell them to selectively enforce the law.
Tell them their obligation is to the taxpayer and the law, not their mayor or governor's political party.
In a world where a certain party can get 34 FELONY convictions for "falsified business records" , I think it's very possible that these videos could meet the bar of some federal court somewhere of sedition or if not attempting to cause insurrection .
Explain to me how a person who walked through the capital on 1/6 could get multiple years in a harsh prison but behavior like this gets a total pass?
And don't forget Joe Biden's retaliation after the Abbey Gate slaughter (that was his fault and that of his military leaders) which led to the deaths of 10 Afghanis, including an aid worker, and 7 children. Who gave that order and should it have been followed?
It seems to have gone over absolutely everyone else's head on the globe, but Trump's high octane reaction is fairly obviously calculated.
On Wednesday, Nov. 19th, the only two types of stories in the media were Epstein stories and "Trump says OK release the Epstein files but shut up about it" stories. The froth on Epstein was over the rooftops and Trump clearly hated it.
As of Thursday, Nov. 20th and ever since, Trump said hang these folks for sedition and the Epstein story is almost nonexistent. He went big on this one to change the conversation, clearly.
Pretty standard from the Trump playbook, but once again he's got a masterful touch and his enemies are completely playing the game only according to rules he's creating. I'm not taking a side to say this, just calling it like I'm seeing it happen.
I know, because finding out that Stacey Plaskett was a direct employee of Epstein and Ghislain (yes, the UK heiress with the connected father.) and that Larry Summers was needing to "spend more time with his family." was a devastating blow to the President and you are correct "Someone" really needed to change the conversation but I'm pretty sure it's not who you think.
No. Not really. The Dems have dropped Epstein for a new, well planned narrative. The new narrative is illegal orders. Whistle blowers are now coming forward. Trump didn't change the narrative. The Dems did in consortium with the MSM.
That was different to them. They believe our military that we pay for, is like the guest towels in my mothers bathroom. They are for other people. It's okay to drone weddings in other countries or play in forever proxy wars but they draw the line when you actually defend people in this country by blowing up cartel boats because... "both parties in Venezuela are corrupt and we just want their minerals for US... " God forbid we do anything for ourselves or it's racist and evil because our place in this world is to work and make sure we have clean guest towels, and pay for the plunders of others while tripping over our own sick, poor and homeless people and ignoring the fact that the cargo on those boats being blown up right now are being sent to destabilize, make/perpetuate addiction or even kill the sick and poor in this country. (Cartels. the new job creators.) That pain we are supposed to be immune to and ignore because it's migrants and drug cartels who have the benefit of OUR Constitution (and whoever is at the top of the food chain collecting their share of the enormous amounts of fuck you money those drug boats are carrying) Those poor foreigners who are breaking our laws are being abused and we are nothing but the world's favorite useful idiots who need to behave accordingly. I can't not see any of that absurdity but I'm expected to.
We have no proof of what is on those boats being blown up, unless the feds release the intel that led them to believe it was drugs. Even if it was drugs, we can wait until they are closer to our borders, and have them interdicted by the Coast Guard.
They have the intel. If they see it happening off of their coastline maybe they will stop trying and we don't have to do it at all. Deterrence to me is preferable but you have to show you mean it before that works. When we do it only on our coastline they'd prolly head straight for Canada. I think commercial ships need to be scrutinized more closely. I'm not unsympathetic. I'm also not unsympathetic to people here living in tents. if we truly believe addiction is an illness and they get to a point that they can't stop themselves even long enough so the shelters will take them in... They have souls as well.
The "certain death from above" is the real deterrent to those illegally entering American territory on small boats. The Coast Guard, boarding a vessel that may or may not engage in evasive maneuvers, not so much.
Besides. Depending on the state they might get to trial in could drop the charges 'due to the intimidating circumstances of your arrest' or some variation of 'orange man bad, here have some free whatever'
But they aren't "illegally entering American territory." They are in the Carribean, in small boats not even equipped to make a sea bound journey for American shores/waters.
And I know you didn't mention it, the other lady above did - but if "they have the intel" to prove these were drug-laden boats destined to dump their poison into the American populace, why on earth would they be so stingy about displaying that evidence to the American public? Even in this polarized American discourse we have, the VAST majority of Americans would be happy to get behind "actual" action taken against "actual" dangerous drug cartel members.
After all, with over 40M+ Americans suffering from substance use disorders regarding drugs, pretty much EVERY American knows someone/a loved one adversly effected by illegal narcotics....
Funny you brought that up, because, if memory serves, Taibbi was one of the few journalists to question Obama's unchecked drone warfare, particularly the targeting of American citizens overseas.
It may have been strike one against Matt, who was very much of the Left at that time. Nobody questioned it, left or right.
Because these six are part of the protected club. The J6 sight-seers were just fodder for the Unselect Committee that destroyed all their records... See how this works? Ya gotta be part of the club to skate.
I heard that a lot of recent congressional candidates have I.C. connections - could it be that the CIA is funding US congressmen surreptitiously, with cut-outs and NGO-laundered money?
By the way, it's a misconception that there were serious punishments for illegal orders or actions under them for the My Lai massacre in 1968.
One soldier served a three year sentence. All commanders were acquitted completely. Not saying they weren't guilty - apparently you can issue illegal orders and follow them for the most part, if the brass will have your back.
The soldier found guilty could not substantiate that he was just following illegal orders because when the commanders were acquitted, that meant no illegal orders were deemed to be given.
In particular, just keep in mind this was all started by, as Matt might put it, an unforced error.
Per usual, Democrats (and I used to reliably vote Democrat back in those crazy ol' "rational days") put out an ostensibly salacious and provocative video that lacked any clarifying details or qualifications.
...and then get bent out of shape by the response.
There was ZERO need for the video. I can't think of any reason to put out such a video except to as a provocative action.
Yes, per usual as well, Trump's response was thoroughly Trumpian.
But if you don't poke the bear in the first place...
yeah, part of a calculated psyop. always psyop, only psyop. long past time time to stop playing on the rigged game table, turn the mutherfucker over and beat some bitches bloody.
As usual, the reason for the video was distraction and misdirection from Epstein falling hard on the heads of countless Democrats. Equally as usual, the slimeball Dems overplayed their hand to the extreme. Do they still not comprehend that words have consequences? I hope Kelly loses his pension and they all suffer severe harm to their reputations, especially if some poor GI fires a round at some innocent American in a misguided attempt to uphold the Constitution.
What they said had a place and time to be said, but they didn’t have the authority to state to the military, considering many of them are 19 year olds.
The FBI has to investigate the case anyway (in kids gloves, asking questions on Zoom, no armed men sent to houses before dawn) and those Democrats now get media appearances where they can claim any bs. This would've happened regardless of whatever Trump says or doesn't say. Journalists make a big deal of X and its equivalents while the rest of the population doesn't care and doesn't take it literarily.
Provocative for sure. Good luck being more outrageous, provocative, or vindictive than Trump.
It’s two drunken troubadours who are performing for 45% each of the population. And deluding themselves that more than 45% are paying attention and agreeing.
I won't disagree about the underlying "bad theater" which is on full display.
The issue for me is that the initial provocation, the video calling for disobeying illegal orders was at a different level.
It's one thing for people to be obnoxious, provocative or vindictive. Fine, that's up to them.
But Slotkin-et-alia are not just "playing in the media", they're playing with fire.
** This video was a statement by members of Congress that explicitly directed members of the armed forces and intelligence services -- who answer to the executive branch -- that they should not follow "illegal orders". But Slotkin-et-alia never gave any specific examples thereof nor a clear description of what they felt constituted such illegal orders. It was very vague but encouraged disobeying the executive branch. Why? Slotkin later said she wasn't aware of any illegalities...so why make the video? Slotkin is former CIA and apparently didn't have any problems with the drone programs. At least she never made any videos when at the CIA.
** As sitting members of Congress, Slotkin-et-alia are involved with voting on matters of foreign policy. They are not mere "influencers" on the internet but officials. As such, there statements carry real weight -- weight that was obviously seen by heads of governments around the world. In just about any country on earth, an overture by members of the government to disobey the leader of the country would very likely be met with...consequences. All of the participants in the video were very careful to state what their earlier roles were in the armed forces or intelligence services and identified themselves in their current roles in Congress. That's relevant. It wasn't as though they said, "Yeah, since I'm at home just thinking as a citizen...", they were very explicit in their self-descriptions and emphasized their official roles.
So, yes, at the level of "personalities" and "media", this is mud wrestling.
But the context is vastly more serious, I think.
So, yes, Trump will certainly be Trump but in this case I think he had to respond. I think Slotkin-et-alia crossed a very serious, very clear line.
I would also add that Slotkin-et-alia used their position in power to issue a veiled threat to the military. It's not some teen girl talking on TikTok.
I wonder if Slotkin-et-al thought about the statute of limitations? I mean, they are making veiled threats to the military and intelligence agencies to disobey "illegal" orders and to remember the democrats will be back in power eventually.
How will she feel when the same or less incident is used to arrest military personnel so the next republican can arrest her for doing the same or worse?
The combination of the "casual ambiguity" as to what constitutes an "illegal order" as projected in the Slotkin-et-al video combined with the completely clear message that such whatever-they-are orders should be refused and that the Democrats will "have your back" was presumably set up to give the participants in the video enough wiggle room as to provide "plausible deniability" but also, depending on the "interpretation", also convey a not-so-veiled threat (i.e., we'll know who is on which side on the basis of who obeys whose orders).
So the game-theoretic underpinnings per your question seem, to me at least, so completely wide-open as not really allow for any clear conclusions to be drawn!
It's perfect "passive-aggressive propaganda".
And coming from "former intelligence agents" too!
Not that they would be familiar with psy-ops, extra-judicial executions or color-revolutions!
Trump is not to be underestimated in his ability to smash-mouth street-fight NYC-style. I mean, weren't they paying attention to the 2016 debates? The guy is reflexively brutal. They ain't gonna win. He can draw blood quicker than any human in public life. And contrary to your point, more 45% do like that about him.
More like 5 percent of the pop engaged for the two teams - the rest glancing at the issue now and then while planning thanksgiving. Matt's right - both sides are acting like dopes by treating voters as dopes. Vance, in particular, better wake up and start doing some other than acting as Trump's mini-me.
I disagreed with the statement about the action being sedition, because other statutes state the illegality of their actions. Nonetheless, he had to say something that night as Commander in Chief.
We want to speak directly to members of the military and the Intelligence community, who take risks each day to keep Americans safe. We know you’re under enormous stress and pressure right now. *Americans trust their military. But that trust is at risk. This administration is pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens. Like us you all swore an oath to protect and defend this constitution. Right now, the threats to our Constitution aren’t just coming from abroad, but from right here at home.*
Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders. You can refuse illegal orders. You must refuse illegal orders. No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our constitution. We know this is hard and that it’s a difficult time to be a public servant. But whether you’re serving in the CIA, the Army, Our Navy, the Air Force, your vigilance is critical. And know that we have your back. Because now, more than ever, the American people need you. We need you to stand up for our laws, our Constitution, and hwo we are as Americans. Don’t give up. Don’t give up. Don’t give up the Ship.”
They claim this was a clear restatement of the law, but they're much more than halfway in before they even mention that. They're painting a picture, it's clear, from the * section I marked.
Thanks for the handy transcript. Looks like standard Big Blue Mommy emotional manipulation right there, complete with "say it three times" ceremonial magic incantations. (Yikes.) "You poor things! Under so much stress! You don't have to do what Daddy says, ya know... We need you! Don't give up!"
So can we go after the crew that was eavesdropping on every call in America during, who was that, Obama's administration? Weren't they going after American citizens without cause?
How about Jack Smith? Spying on Republican congress people? Does that fit the matrix they mention?
So in reference to the video I asked Grok on Nov 18th
perhaps there have been changes but...
"is this illegal?"
GROK response
No, the actions described in Sen. Elissa Slotkin's video—urging U.S. service members and intelligence professionals to refuse illegal orders and uphold their oath to the Constitution—are not illegal. This message aligns with longstanding U.S. military law, which explicitly requires service members to disobey "manifestly unlawful" orders (those clearly violating the Constitution, federal law, or international standards like the Geneva Conventions). It does not constitute incitement to insurrection or any other crime, as it frames refusal as a legal duty tied to oaths of service, not a call to rebel against lawful authority.
Key Legal Context
Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ): Article 90 prohibits disobeying a superior commissioned officer but exempts "patently illegal" orders.
Article 92 requires obedience to lawful general orders or regulations but mandates refusal of unlawful ones, such as those involving war crimes, unconstitutional domestic deployments, or civilian targeting.
Service members' oaths bind them to "support and defend the Constitution... against all enemies, foreign and domestic," prioritizing law over blind obedience.
The "Nuremberg defense" ("just following orders") is invalid; troops can (and have) been prosecuted for obeying illegal commands, as in cases like My Lai or Abu Ghraib.
Surveys show 80% of U.S. troops understand this duty to disobey, and training reinforces it from basic levels onward.
Refusal carries risks if the order is later deemed lawful, but obedience to illegal ones exposes individuals to prosecution.
Why the Video Isn't Illegal
No Incitement: The lawmakers (Slotkin, Sen. Mark Kelly, and Reps. Chris Deluzio, Chrissy Houlahan, Maggie Goodlander, Jason Crow—all with military/intelligence backgrounds) explicitly reference legal refusals of illegal orders, invoking the oath and laws like the Posse Comitatus Act (barring military domestic law enforcement without congressional approval) and the Insurrection Act's limits.
They do not urge defiance of lawful commands or violence; it's a reminder of existing protections, akin to congressional inquiries or Inspector General reports for questionable orders.
Congressional Speech Protections: As lawmakers, they enjoy broad First Amendment immunity under the Speech or Debate Clause (Article I, Section 6) for legislative acts, including public advocacy on military policy.
This video, titled "Don't Give Up the Ship" (a War of 1812 reference), is political speech on constitutional threats, not sedition—especially amid Democratic bills like the No Troops in Our Streets Act to curb domestic military use.
Context of Concerns:
The appeal responds to Trump-era actions like airstrikes near Venezuela (potentially violating UCMJ on unlawful killings) and National Guard deployments to U.S. cities (e.g., Los Angeles, ruled unlawful in 2025 court decisions for breaching Posse Comitatus).
Slotkin has pressed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for legal assurances, receiving dismissals.
Experts like Duke's Peter Feaver note Congress should probe such policies but criticize the administration's overreach, not the lawmakers' message.
On Stephen Miller's "Insurrection" Claim
Miller's accusation is hyperbolic rhetoric, not a substantiated legal argument. Legal analyses of the video find no basis for insurrection charges (18 U.S.C. § 2383, requiring armed rebellion against U.S. authority), as the message promotes lawful constitutional fidelity, not violence or overthrow.
Similar claims by Miller (e.g., labeling judicial rulings as "legal insurrection") have drawn condemnation as "authoritarian propaganda" that endangers officials without legal merit.
No prosecutions or formal investigations have followed the video, despite its 3+ million views and polarized replies.
In short, this is protected advocacy reinforcing military ethics amid partisan tensions over executive power. If orders are truly illegal, refusal is the law—not insurrection.
Grok is by far the worst AI for this kind of thing. Speech and debate is for legislative purposes. Typically the only sure protection is on the floor or in chambers, not on social media.
It has no part here because claiming it covered this would be also saying they would be able to make an outright statement that people shouldn’t follow any military order under Trump, because that would be protected by “speech and debate”. It is most certainly not protected.
The issue here is too nuanced for Grok. It’s did they go over a line in totality. And just couch it in that language. If you stop the video in the middle it says something totally different, then they wrap it in this narrow fig leaf.
Here's a take from ChatGPT that gives a fuller picture, in part due to the phrasing od the task:
What are the factors that weigh in favor and against the Seditious Six video being problematic
Good question. The controversy around the Seditious Six video — the video released by six U.S. lawmakers urging military / intelligence personnel to “refuse illegal orders” — is complicated. Below are key factors in favor and factors against viewing the video as “problematic,” along with why each side sees things differently. I’m summarizing what has been argued publicly so far.
✅ Arguments in favor of concern / that the video might be problematic
Risk to military discipline and chain of command
As noted by Pete Hegseth (Secretary of War), the video may have “injected doubt into the armed forces,” undermining cohesion. He argues that vague messaging — “refuse illegal orders” — could sow confusion or hesitation among service members. AOL+2Fox News+2
The argument is that civilian-political messaging encouraging refusal of orders (especially if undefined) might erode trust and obedience — vital to military structure — potentially endangering operations and unit integrity. Yahoo+2https://newsbusters.org/+2
Ambiguity / lack of clarity about what orders are “illegal”
Critics note that the video does not reference any specific “illegal order.” Without clarification, it becomes more a general call for disobedience “if you think orders may be illegal,” rather than a concrete, legally-grounded instruction. AOL+1
That ambiguity raises the risk that troops might misapply this instruction — refusing lawful orders under subjective interpretation — which could lead to breakdowns in command or chaotic adherence. Fox News+1
Potential politicization of the military
By making such a video — from lawmakers, not military command — there’s a concern that the military becomes entangled in partisan politics or used as a political tool. It could blur the boundary between civilian political disputes and military professionalism. This is one of the main concerns cited. AOL+1
For some critics, the act appears less as a constitutional-ethics call and more like a “politically-motivated influence operation” aimed at undermining the current administration’s authority over the armed forces. Yahoo News+1
Legal and ethical doubts under military law
At least one of the lawmakers in the video, Mark Kelly (retired Navy), remains subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Officials say his participation “may bring discredit upon the armed forces,” and are examining possible misconduct. https://newsbusters.org/+1
For critics, this suggests that advocating disobedience — even if framed as “only illegal orders” — may still cross lines legally or ethically when delivered by a person with military background to current servicemembers. https://newsbusters.org/+1
✅ Arguments in favor of the video / that it may be justified or even necessary
Affirming duty to refuse unlawful orders — a long-standing legal principle
As supporters note (and many legal experts have argued), U.S. law and military doctrine recognize that service members must refuse “patently illegal” orders. Reminding troops of that duty can be viewed as upholding the rule of law and constitutional/ethical obligations. TIME+1
The individuals in the video are veterans or ex-military/intel officers — arguably giving them context and credibility when discussing legality and ethics of orders. That background lends weight to their comments for some viewers. The National Pulse+2Newsmax+2
Preventing potential abuses of power and protecting constitutional norms
Proponents argue the video serves as a safeguard: by publicly reminding the military of their legal limits, it may deter unlawful or unconstitutional orders from being carried out. Especially in polarized or high-stakes political situations, that kind of transparency can act as a check.
In that view, encouraging critical evaluation and lawful refusal is part of preserving democratic oversight over the military — not undermining it. Some legal commentators have said the video doesn’t amount to sedition. TIME+1
Legitimate free speech and congressional prerogative
The lawmakers in the video are civilians (even if ex-military), exercising their rights to speech and public duty. As elected officials, they ask important questions about legality and oversight. From that perspective, their remarks fall under protected political speech.
Given that they did not call for disobedience of specific lawful orders, but only urged refusal of “illegal orders,” many legal experts say this is not criminal but a constitutionally protected reminder. TIME+1
Transparency and preparing service members for potential future dilemmas
In a climate of contentious political decisions, especially involving military or intelligence operations, the video may be seen as a preemptive effort to prepare troops for potential wrongdoing, and encourage ethical conduct.
For supporters, the video’s generality (lack of a named order) is not a bug but a feature: it’s not about one particular administration or policy — it's about reaffirming a principle that spans administrations.
⚠️ Key Tensions & Why It’s Hard to Draw a Clear Line
What counts as “unlawful” vs. “disliked” orders? The ambiguity is real. Because the video doesn’t specify any order, it leaves too much open to interpretation — which is precisely the concern from critics. Without objective standards, “unlawful” could be subjectively decided, potentially undermining order.
The difference between legal principle and practical impact. Even if – in principle – troops should refuse unlawful orders, in practice calls like this could lead to hesitation, confusion, or politicization of the military, especially if public pressure/influence plays a role.
Risk of eroding trust in the chain of command. Once messaging like this becomes normalized, it could weaken the presumption of obedience and trust — which many argue is vital for a professional military.
Free speech vs. responsibility. While elected officials have the right to speak, when they address active-duty service members (especially using military credentials), there’s a question of whether that crosses a line into undue influence or even de facto command — raising legal and normative concerns.
🎯 My Take: The Video Highlights a Real Dilemma — And Whether It’s Problematic Depends on Context & Implementation
I think the video taps into a legitimate and important concern: the need for service members to be aware of their legal and moral obligation not to obey unlawful orders. That principle helps preserve constitutional norms and prevents abuses. At the same time, the ambiguity in the video — no specific orders cited — raises real risks: it could weaken discipline, sow confusion, or politicize the military if widely adopted as a norm.
In short: the idea is defensible and arguably necessary for democratic oversight; the delivery is risky and could have unintended negative consequences.
Today's Democrats are not the Same of those old days. Once upon a time they believed that you could have your own opinions, but not your own facts. Today... The Democrat base doesn't actually read (as evidence by the scores of the schools in most Democrat cities), so they just have to give them the headline and let them go.
They are younger now, and have this belief beaten into them by the sham of an education system that "experts" know everything, and you should always believe someone with credentials, even if your Full of Shit Meter is off the charts.
Actually, Lincoln understood it very clearly. So did Coolidge and Eisenhower.
Grant took the most blunt and decisive steps to bring the left into complete compliance with the laws and therefore remains one of the greatest of all American leaders.
It was however a great failing of both Nixon & Reagan and even more especially of Bush I&II.
Even better, how about a "Rape is illegal, even when done by Senators, and even when done by older white men from Arizona. If you are raped, we will protect you. You can refuse to be raped by Senator Mark Kelly from Arizona. If Senator Mark Kelly from Arizona tries to rape you, you can report it and will be protected. It is illegal for Senator Mark Kelly to rape you!"
Then you get to defend it by calling it a public service announcement because it's clearly true that rape is illegal, even for VIPs. We're simply restating well-known law here, folks, nothing to see or push back on.
Yes, I wrote something akin to this on X that I thought was a useful analogy as it presented a situation a lot of parents could relate to:
Imagine if someone cut a video ad with the "seditious six" that said "If you are the children of these people, we want you to know that if you may have been touched inappropriately, or think you may be subject to some form of abuse -- mental or physical, there are people that can help." Then flash the number for then child protective services hotline...
Heck, imagine if Trump had the Children’s Bureau in HHS do this.
I think then they'd see how insidious these tactics that leverage the dark arts of social psychology can be.
Both sides are entirely mock-worthy - and I think Matt's on exactly the right track - whether we're talking about failing schools, or pill-popping white folks like Vance's mom - still clean, I hope, god bless her.
I'd love Walter and Matt to do weekly lists of three clown shows from each party/side. The tech billionaires are ideal targets.
MTG alone this week confirms just how goofy elected MAGA maniacs can be - "I'm not getting my own way. Trump is ripping MAGA apart"
Nothing quite says "I'm actually a flake" like going from "I'm taking a stand" to "I quit" within a week.
My only advice to Matt and Walter: rip out their innards and show no merci.
Agree with most of your post, but disagree regarding MTG.
Trump's attacks on MTG, Massie, and Paul were all totally out of line.
All any of them has done is stand on principles like smaller government, and fewer tax dollars flowing out to corrupt entities. Instead of paying attention to their critiques of that Big Dumb Ugly Bill, he insisted that it be passed just as it was -- full of all sorts of BS expenditures. Ever since then, he's had it in for all 3 of them.
MTG has been consistent on important issues. Sometimes, she's ridiculous, but she's usually right on target with her criticisms of Trump. Instead of attacking her, he should have treated her with respect, and listened to her.
Cheers, we'll have to disagree on this point. My foundational position is that Trump is in the WH by an act of god, a head turn at the last moment - that's all that prevented auto-pen from getting a second term - and that's how fragile and short-lived the current administration is.
In public, here's what good soldiers say:
"The president and I have our differences, and I understand the frustrations of some of his supporters. I'm fully confident that President x shares many of our concerns and is working as hard as he can to address them."
Maybe rinse and repeat until after the mid-terms coz with MTG & the rest of the "are we there yet" whiners backseat driving, all the "good" they're doing is depressing the 2026 GOTV efforts for low-propensity voters who are all that stands between us and more of the same, but just a lot worse.
We're so not out of the woods it's not close to being funny. Shots ring out twice this time last year.
Nah he was beating anybody the democrats had it didn’t matter at all.
The two political skits - McDonald’s and the dump truck - were the greatest campaign ads in history. Absolutely astonishing to watch in the polls. That alone guaranteed victory but it’s such a shame they were wasted on jr high opponents
Trump is a practical politician of a high order, as his winning the Presidency twice (maybe three times) proves. His orientation is toward holding a coalition together while he gets as much good done as he can, even if that requires compromise.
MTG, Massie, and Paul are purists, ideologues who “make the perfect the enemy of the good”.
MTG, Massie and Paul with a handful of others represent the few willing to stand against wars of choice, wars against adjectives, deficit spending to oblivion and civil liberty abominations like FISA courts, intelligence agency spying on US citizens and ever expanding government takeover of what we can do, say and think 24/7.
That they in your mind are “purists, ideologues…” tells us the sorry state of our electorate.
The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.
What good is being done? Just doing something isn't helpful. Its usually unhelpful. Idiots scream for the government to do something then complain about the consequences.
I love Trump and voted for him three times. I understand the impulse to defend him and his actions after all of the dirty, underhanded tricks and unreasonable criticism he has faced since defeating Hillary. I agree that the Dem video was despicable. Yet I still wish, just once, Trump would not overreact and add more fuel to the fire. I'm with Matt on this one, both sides suck and should STFU for a few minutes. Thanks Matt!
Expecting a guy who made it to the WH twice in the face tons of outside advice telling him he's "doing it wrong" - especially when he's been in office less than a year is perhaps asking a bit too much. Non-stop mouthing off is Trump's brand and weapon of choice in case folks haven't noticed.
It is weird. With federal law enforcement the argument is constantly made that the Department of Justice should work independent from the President. But a mayor's right to micro manage its big city police department is never questioned.
The law enforcement officers do their jobs, however, the courts go by the "Catch and Release" policy of no-bail and no-jail and these offenders get arrested again (+70 times) to prey on the citizens of the states.
Oh: you’ll see fireworks, alright! You’ll see National Guard troops being arrested in myriad states, s they follow the rule of law of those states as they retain to the appropriate and lawful deployment of federal rooms on unsanctioned and/or unlawful ways…
No, that won't happen. Politicians are way too crafty to take that cheese. The message was aimed at the 19 yr old recruit who maybe loves Jesus but hates the brass.
Happy Thanksgiving Matt and Racket! The thrater kid color revolution is growing tiresome after a decade. They know exactly what they are doing because the CIA has honed the craft in disasters around the world.
If the Slotkin video looks like CIA, acts like CIA, sounds like CIA - then maybe someone needs to take a hard look at the CIA. We need to know who produced the video. This business of rationalizing / excusing / explaining-away any & all kinds of evil crap that the democrats do (looking at you, judge) needs to stop.
with a dystopian end time prequel that shows when and how shit got so bad. The generation at fault. Why they let it happen to future generations. kind of a WW thing with an ideocracy twist.
When Kelly was doing his, "I'm a patriotic combat hero" shtick afterwards, all I could think of was, I bet you there are a bunch of Russian Communist war heroes that sound exactly the same. Oh, and also, I thought, Duke Cunningham was a war hero too.
Exactly my take when an elected junior senator references a MOVIE for goodness sake for her justification.
The video of Slotkin and Kelly was designed to be provocative. And the wretched Hillary Clinton amplified their excrescence with her chiming in hoping Trump would soon be “off the stage”.
Hoping all these creeps, who have foisted multiple corrupt acts on us over the past decade, will go the heck home for the weekend and stuff themselves with turkey while they count their filthy lucre.
Whenever I think of Hillary Clinton, I think of Tom Petty’s “American Girl,” and smile.
Hil played that song at rallies in ‘08, and maybe again in ‘16. The lyric that makes it so perfect for her unquenched, never-to-be-slaked thirst for the White House:
🎶 God it’s so painful / for something to be so close / and still so far out of reach 🎶
If only Crooks had taken Trump out in Butler that video would not have been needed. That is why the Dems have been so upset. They promised the PTB the one world gov was theirs come 2030 and that dam new yorker is screwing it up again and this will be twice they will not get their bonuses.
Poking at a live hornet's nest with a stick. They must understand what it is that they're provoking - it's "not a joke" as the Cabbage-in-Chief used to say.
Whatever the quality of Trump's or Vances tweets, this is not a "both sides," issue. This is Brennan and his CIA cronies carrying out an operation on the US that began with a psyop on the American Military. If it is not quite seditious, it is serious treachery, no matter one's view of the president. Such treachery has to be met with all the legal force that is appropriate, and maximal, for the matter at hand. The military are once again being used as political pawns by the democrats (Marxicrats). They did so first in the shutdown and, now, in this program of near sedition. It has to be put down. If it is not, then it will become a "both sides" issue, for in the future, both sides will foment programs like this to undermine the chief executive whom they disfavor. It will be chaos. Brennan and his people have crossed the Rubicon and dragged all of us with them, and it is infuriating.
I, personally, am so sick to death of the dangerous games that the Dems played from the day that Trump came down that escalator in 2015....on continuous coup attempt after another....failure to accept an election...and here we are again....doing it over....the balls of them to talk about Trump contesting the 2020 election....they didn't accept Nixon's and they don't accept Trumps. Sick to death of it.
And that's me and I am not the direct target. I can imagine how sick to death Trump is of it. And you cannot reason with these people. They are insane....literally and figuratively.
That said, Trump needs someone to guard his phone so that he cannot post uncleared comments on Truth Social. It gives a bad look.
you are right...Trump and his wife came down the stairs and announced his running for President. Immediately, the other side went to work with "illegal" war of putting Trump penury, prison, and later attempted assassination .
It’s important to remember that while the Democrats are the current puppets, the puppeteers remain the Security State-Wall Street alliance. They were in charge for both Bush and Obama. They made sure Bernie didn’t win, but they failed twice to prevent Trump.
They cannot abide a disruptive force. That’s what Trump is. Political party got nothing to do with it.
Apologies, no kindness intended. I’ve long lost any faith in any of those fuckers. It’s just that too many of us lapse back into the tribal warfare, when the puppeteers continue to get us to hate each other rather than them.
My brother died of methamphetamine. To me blowing those so-called fishing boats to smithereens is justified. Just seems like in my view stolen elections have consequences and 2020 was a stolen election.
He’s the President. I want to hear from him. Others can ask him if he thinks this or that would be better, but I don’t want to hear from a staffer. Plus I am used to his speech and comments, and get it when he simply making his authority clear.
I don't want to hear from a staffer either. All I am saying is that he often needs a filter...to not turn off people who did vote for him but may not continue to support...I often write responses which I then modify or delete...for people who will misinterpret.
I read the comments on the NYPost and that should scare the begeesus out of anyone...and that paper actually employs journalists.
Remember what they told Nixon in 19 60. Sorry dick they stole it fair and square and Nixon accepted that I feel like Nixon was railroaded especially after the 1972 election and then being kicked out but that can happen when both the house in the Senate although they didn't have a 2/3 majority in the Senate to impeach by party they did have the two-thirds majority he had no options but to resign it's very sad to me. And that more than anything is why the United States lost Vietnam after we at the Nixon had won it in 73
Wrong take here, Matt. The Slotkin vid is flat-out an encouragement to mutiny, made worse by the assurance that "we will have your back" if you do so. Without a single example of an "illegal order" that has been given. And all of it done by a former CIA officer, who knows a thing or two about fomenting discord within society. Can't think of another time something like this has ever happened in domestic politics. Can you?
And today, for some reason I received a text from Sen Kelly saying "The Department of Defense [sic] is coming after me because they don't like what I have ti say. Let's call it what it is: Political persecution." The text then asks for a $10 donation while assuring me that "We will not give up the ship." The next phase of "the insurrection."
Sure, Trump's response was harsh but hardly unwarranted given the magnitude of the transgression by the Seditious Six. You don't seem to understand the seriousness of what they did.
I absolutely understand the seriousness of what they did, which is why it was imperative for Trump to put effort into deciding how to deal with it and not just pop off with threats about hanging… his huge weakness is he doesn’t see the necessity of playing outside his core audience at key moments like this. He’s also not listening to what Kelly is saying. The Democrats are telling officers to ask their commanders if they’re confused about orders, which suggests to me they’ve been quietly recruiting commanders, which is what people do in coups. So similarly, every time Trump asks a high officer to color outside the lines with the boat bombing program or Posse Comitatus violations, he’s probably undermining his own power base. I just don’t think he’s being smart.
I'm a retired USN chief and with Pacificus on this one. Trump responded appropriately, imo, to the threat of a coup. He hasn't colored outside the lines of Posse Comitatus or with the drug boat bombing program. There have been no threats to civilians by NG troops. I felt my gut twist when I watched the junta video.
How could you possibly interpret a video reminding the military of their duty to refuse unlawful orders as a coup threat? Isn’t that the most basic principle that is drilled into them from boot camp? What does that have to do with a coup?
Imagine you're walking on a 4" wide wobbly plank suspended a thousand feet over a canyon. Is the person who shouts from safety, "Whatever you do, don't look down!" acting in your interest?
Primarily because all service members already know this, so there was no reason for them to be reminded. Also because they had no examples of "illegal orders" to offer.
What they're really saying is that when Dems retake power, they will move against those who performed actions of which they disapprove. We already saw that with the insane prosecutions/persecutions of J6ers.
No one in the service needs to be lectured about the duty to disobey an illegal order. So, its inarguable that this was not a public service reminder by Kelly et al. This was a very clear threat pointed at all who serve. The reference to Nuremberg was the standard TDS Hitler ploy and a warning to those who serve that years later, when Dems are in power, they could be prosecuted. If we don't see the DOJ prosecuting Kelly et al for this attempt to destable the armed forces we will know how deep the rot really goes.
#1 Military members don't need to be reminded that they are to refuse illegal orders. #2 The coup leaders slammed servicemembers by stating "Americans trust their military, but that trust is at risk." #3 "THIS ADMINISTRATION IS PITTING OUR UNIFOMRED MILITARY....AGAINST AMERICAN CITIZENS." Not only are these scum trying to lead a coup, they are also trying to convince US citizens that their military is a danger to them. It was reported elsewhere that one of these lowlifes mentioned the elimination of the drug boats as illegal. Here's some news for you on leadership: it's not the job of the servicemember to question every order coming from the leadership. Just like with Obama's drone assassinations with collateral damage and Bush's Iraq fiasco, it's up to the 6 lowlifes and their colleagues in Congress to investigate what they perceive as Illegal orders. Here is an example of an officer with honor (missing from the 6) stopping an illegal action. https://www.warhistoryonline.com/featured/helicopter-pilot-stopped-my-lai-massacre.html
Answer== the actual sedition ongoing in Agencies will be in the streets soon (midterms, IMO). It’s a color revolution. They are freezing the military *ahead* of what would be appropriate deployment to riot zones.
I hope my prediction is wrong, but haven't there been admissions from serious sources that a color revolution is being cooked up now? Corrections welcome.
Because it isn’t hard to imagine Trump giving illegal orders. In his first term he mused about shooting protestors. He has zero respect for laws and constitution. The entire year has been an endless stream of unconstitutional executive orders and illegal actions. Just this week Comeys case was dropped because Halligan was appointed illegally. That’s one example of dozens
Uh, since when is it the military's duty to control POTUS? That is so inappropriate and manipulative it makes my head spin. A politicized military is a very dangerous road to follow.
TDS has destroyed you with ahistorical emotions and completely dishonest appeals to partisan games. Your hero Obama and Biden did the same and more not even in our hemisphere claiming terrorist.
Read the following article and then explain to me why the George Soros funded National Lawyers Guild (the legal arm of Antifa) published a page urging military members to refuse illegal orders and why they would also partner with Win Without War (a group backed by Soros's Open Society) to put up a billboard in North Carolina asking military members "Did you go airborne just to pull security for ICE?" It sure looks to me like they're trying to foment chaos and dissent among the ranks of our military. It sure looks to me like they're getting very desperate. When organizations like these get desperate, you better watch out. I fear "there's a bad moon on the rise".
They get desperate because they are losing. They wish to inflict upon people things that the people want no part of, using fear and threat. That's not how we roll in this country and I do have faith in those young people who serve. They didn't get brainwashing degrees at Princeton. These guys aren't the ANTIFA sort. What we don't need is misguided idiots attacking them as they serve.
Oh come now, Matt. You can do better than this. There are no officers confused about orders. They may disagree with them or not like them, but believe me they fully understand all orders. If the Democrats are indeed recruiting commanders for a coup, then this is way worse than what this video suggests. And it would be time to demonstrate to all active duty personnel that this kind of crap will not be tolerated. If it takes the court-martial of a sitting senator and retired navy captain to do it, then so be it.
Also, Trump is not undermining his power base. He is doing what 77 million voters elected him to do. His base finally found a Republican who has a pair and who is not afraid to use them.
Do you think being reactionary is more dangerous display of behavior or being so determined to rule that you're willing to plot a hostile takeover is more dangerous? My thing that I keep asking myself is what is so damn urgent that Democrats can't wait four years to accomplish? If it is good then why don't they just tell us rather than blast us with propaganda and gaslight us? When you do good things people line up to follow you. I think you know that. So even if I don't like taking sides sometimes I am forced to take a position. This division is part of the long game plan for sure but is it best to look the other way and except that whoever has the most money or toys or audacity prevails? Some of us have kids. I also don't mind blowing up drug boats. I'm sure that won't set well but for once someone is using military action that is directly benefiting the people who live on this dirt and not something somewhere for the benefit of whoever and how much $$ they can skim off of the top. I'd rather blow up those boats then fill up our prisons and morgues like we have been doing for decades. That doesn't seem moral. People who are so high all the time that they're living on the streets and other people just tripping over them or avoiding those areas. That doesn't seem moral to me either. Whole communities have to live around that and the dangers of knowing the only thing an addicted person cares about is the next fix and they'll do anything to get it. That doesn't seem moral for either side to have to live like that.
Agreed that Trump handled it badly. He should have said that it was a psyop to confuse the soldiers and interfere with the millitary command structure, which impacts millitary readiness. He should have said the FBI will look into it and launched an investigation, because of the seriousness of the matter.
All their emails, phone calls and text messages need to be scrutinized for intent.
There is a wealth of well-documented information in social psychology that documents how frame contamination and suspicion seeding works. They need to package it up and present it to America. Info about these persuasion and propaganda techniques are out there.
This was, essentially, the same kind of op the 51 intel officers in the Hunter Biden laptop letter used. The toed the line with "earmarks of" and "information operation", knowing that it would change the frame entirely for journalists, and confuse them into thinking that the letter writers claimed it was Russian disinformation.
This shit needs to be shut down, as it will likely happen again.
Given that Kelly’s fundraising off it, that puts him in Jasmine Crockett land.
This is all nonsense. More
Theater. A political gimmick and the expected furious response. The people yelling Sedition! about this sound like those yelling it about every other thing Trump’s done for 10 years.
It's theater in that it's transparent to intelligent people versed in manipulation. It's deadly serious in that it's aimed at 18 yr olds who are barely literate. I try really hard to enjoy the comedy when I can, but I find these spies and politicians without redeeming value.
And that's the point, Ann. This is deliberately targeted to young military, some barely out of their teens who have now been warned that their lives could be ruined if they obey an order that turns out to have been illegal. Once you destroy the authority of a commanding officer, you have destroyed the force of your military. If an order proves to have been illegal, it is the commanding officer, not the service personnel who should be held accountable.
And to sharpen the horns of the dilemma, there is the absolute certainty that to disobey a legal order will land that young soldier in very deep trouble indeed. So, we end up with some combination of rebellion, confusion, paralysis - a really great way to fight a war.
Yes, I had a fairly high level of respect for Kelly. Never has my estimation of a politician cratered so fast. He's probably running for President. Trump should play this right so as not to imbue him with too much energy.
Do they carry USCODE TEXTS OR EVEN THE CONSTITUTION WITH THEM to battle? What if there’s uncertainty about the command and the commander is not able to stop and talk? I know the JAG instructs them daily, but if it’s something the soldier wants to get out of, he will remember the SIX, and decide it could be illegal and that’s my excuse! Many of these men are under 25. Their brains are not mature yet. They’ll ask their buds and follow them in real life.
...and that's the Kelly and Crew destabilization strategy. They have planted the seeds of doubt and fear in our military. A sure way to destabilize, to create the chaos for a coup.
As a retired USN Master Chief, I saw the video as targeting the lower enlisted. Matt makes a great point that it is a bat-signal being sent out to the command structure. Scary shit…
I think DJT is walking a fine line - most people do not support the democrats agenda (this is evidenced by their ever increasing need to cheat). In addressing their also increasing desperation, he needs to play to his base first - the whole "dance with the one who brung ya".
With that comment I feel even worse. You know the seriousness of the written word and you referencing the word “coup” is scary. I also noticed that Navy Admiral Holsey of the Southern Command just resigned suddenly
I hope Matt doesn't go too far with the Two Sides thing. Some things are just too wrong to equivocate. There is no parallel between seditiously inciting demoralization and destabilization in our armed forces and a president's foolhardy response. Do I wishTrump were more circumspect in his reaction to these provocations? Of course. and hopefully, he can be counseled in this. But meanwhile, let's keep our eye on what is now a desperate and dangerous Dem ball! Just like Trump, they may believe words are just that, words, and that these don't have real world consequences. But they do. This threat to our immature service men and women may be enough to demoralize and destabilize the chain of command, and ultimately to threaten the military power we depend on to protect us.
I don’t remember the first message to be a threat. He named the crime and it’s punishment, but it wasn’t a sentence, but a reminder. The Six may have had something to say to the Commander in Chief that they are aware of, but they were out of line to blast it over the airwaves so we can all now wonder if a coup is imminent. Also, Posse Commitas is missing an element to be named that in the use of the NG we have seen so far. Sorry, I forget the distinction.
It took the Dems' video to finally get you to acknowledge what is going on in Venezuela as well as the mean-spirited and provocative deployments of the National Guard to our cities... but then the only thing you have to say about these topics is that acknowledging them is going to turn you into Uncle Asshole at your Thanksgiving this year? I think you need to stop vibing off of Walter, buddy.
It's the exact opposite- he needs to learn a thing or two from Walter. Seditious Conspiracy is not a crime that should be handled delicately. If we are lucky, the loud internet response has already been balanced with a quiet indictment. They need to go down- full stop.
Seditious conspiracy for…stating simple facts? Y’all really are fascist. It said illegal orders. Illegal! Do you think soldiers SHOULD follow illegal orders?
YOU might be that simple-minded that you don't see the message that came with the words, but the rest of us are not. Or maybe it's that you have no idea that the soldiers have already sworn an oath to the Constitution. Or maybe you are so triggered by your leftist media that you can't hear straight. There were NO "FACTS" even presented in that video- it was offering advice and suggesting non-compliance as a possibility. Do you even understand what we are talking about here? I seems not.
WHAT illegal orders has Trump given? It seems they would have told that. He just insinuated .. If there have been no illegal orders, what was the point of making that video?
You missed the point, Cade Beck. Kelly et al sent a threat to the young, barely out of their teens, military that they could be hanged for obeying an illegal order. They already know that. So, why did Kelly et al lecture them?? And why now??
Protesters were heaving large blocks of concrete off overpasses in LA onto ICE vehicles. Some goofball in TX actually shot into an ICE facility, killing an immigrant.
Yeah, I know. I just had to find a reason to make fun of the dumbass who thought throwing a sandwich would help. Serious lack of self-control. "If I throw this, I'll be chased, caught--probably tackled on asphalt--maybe smacked around a little bit, and definitely on my way to the pokey. GREAT IDEA!"
I actually would have preferred to reference ICE than except that Matt only mentioned the NG. (Hey, you like them so much? Petition your own city council to invite them to your town... I dare you.)
As for ICE: the Luigis can't come for them fast enough. (Again, I never cease to be amazed how the party of small government/liberty/don't tread on me/FEMA death camps has turned on a dime when a shiny jackboot is offered to them to lick.)
These are illegals, moron! And you want murderers/Luigis killing American ICE officers? You're a PIG and should be banned from this platform. Matt, are you watching?
Outside of Massie and Paul Sr and Jr and few others please remind me when they were the party of small government/ liberty etc. ? I really don't recall that. Also please clarify for me what "As for ICE: the Luigis can't come for them fast enough," means. Thank you.
Now you see? This is how you people think. You want to hurt people just doing their jobs. What if people started calling for the NG to Luigis people like you?
"Mean-spirited, provocative deployments of the National Guard to our cities"? Wow! Since when is protecting Americans from rampant crime in their neighborhoods mean-spirited? Did your Democrat feewings get hurt? Don't want the peons to see that Republicans really are better at law and order which is beneficial to their actual lives? You need to recalibrate your brain to what's real, buddy.
Then why don’t you get your mayor on the horn and invite them to your fucking city? Because as far as I can tell, no one else has been requesting them in theirs.
That would be entirely unnecessary since I live in a well-ordered Red City without rampant crime and with a mayor and police chief who care about the residents here and don't want them tortured by murderous gangs and thugs or their neighborhoods burned to the ground! BTW I live in the Free State of Florida. Need I say more?
Oh Snape, I live in Memphis and believe me, most of the citizens are delighted with the National Guard being here to help bring law and order back to the city. Democrats don’t care about law and order, let the criminals run free to rape and kill again. No bail policies, lenient judges, letting convicted murderers go free. You are just another feelings-oriented Democrat idiot who doesn’t understand what society actually wants, and that is law and order and the safety of taxpayers. Not the safety of the felons.
I agree with you Matt, but I don’t think it’ll matter what Trump says or does. This won’t stop with him. It’ll just transfer to the next target. You understand a lot about governmental politics and the flow of information but you seem to be conspicuously ignorant about the politics of masculinity and violence. And that’s ok.
The officers tha are going to cave won’t matter. The fighting (enlisted) men of the US military (whom the officers need to carry out their orders) are predominantly conservative. Trust me, there’s scant loyalty in the grunt and other combat units for leftist officers or politics.
Until someone can identify one or a group of orders that are actually illegal (which is complicated by the 7/24 SCOTUS ruling on presidential immunity) then this is definitely a violation of USC 2387, and is punishable by death if convicted. He’s the same boorish asshole he always was and he’s not wrong.
They’ve tried to kill him twice, they've cuffed him on national tv, tried to jail him, bankrupt him and they’re still slandering and libeling him with impunity. And I include Barack Obama in that “they”.
He’s probably scared under all that bluster and hyperbole and he saw in his first term the consequence of not being blunt and laying down the law. You’re still a little bit too left- and this is why you have trouble seeing this perspective.
We are going exactly where you and Walter think we’re going. If that is indeed the case, and I believe it is, words will cease to matter, and it’ll happen in a blink. Like you, I’ve watched this type of thing unfold in countries overseas, or rather the consequence of this type of prolonged rhetoric. Never thought I’d see it here. I hope you have a route to a less populated locale mapped out.
Unlike Pacificus, I don’t believe your take is wrong. I just don’t think it’s significant. This is treason. Sides have been chosen already. Words really don’t mean that much now, and won’t mean jack shit once the first high ranking officer disobeys publicly.
Posse Comitatus is a truly disgusting law, one of the greatest blunders in American history and one which instantly led to generations of Jim Crow laws and democrat party tyranny that lasted until the 1990s. It would be difficult to find a worse law in the United States.
Eisenhower was absolutely prepared to ignore any court which raised that rancid excuse for a law while he was suppressing Democrats in the 1950s at the point of bayonets. And he was 10000000% correct.
“…which suggests to me…” followed by something as serious as the hint that a coup is in the works is absolutely the most irresponsible bit of journalism I’ ve ever seen. Congratulations, you’ve surpassed Russiagate in the field of crap reporting.
Biden fired thousands of active duty personnel for refusing to take the vax. Don’t recall any Democratic voices supporting those who were fired for not following an unlawful order.
Matt: Thanks for your reply. Yes, Trump is being impolitic in calling for executions for treason, but being impolitic is not an act of insurrection. The video I saw most definitely was--direct encouragement for service members to "disobey illegal orders." Asking commanders seemed optional to me. And who are "the commanders" to ask? Nothing Trump is doing--making unilateral strikes against designated enemies (Obama), sending the National Guard into cities (Ike and JFK sent in troops to enforce civil rights, Hochul herself send the Guard into the subway), to name two possible objections, is without recent precedent.
Of course Trump's reaction seems over the top (do you really expect anything else?), but the real historical frame is this: "normal" American politics is over, we are in a de facto Cold Civil War.. who knows better than you how the intel agencies framed Trump as a Russian asset? This is just the next chapter in the post-Constitutional Republic era we are living in. First thing we have to do is get very clear about that. It will, I think, change how we analyze all of this. If there is an element of "bothsidesism" here, it is that one side is trying to overthrow the elected president, and the other side is attempting to prevent it, albeit in an often ham-handed and ineffective way. To me, that is the lede.
As always, my immense respect for you and what you do.
Should soldiers follow illegal orders? Obviously not. But neither you nor co-conspirator and co-conspirator SLotkin have provided an example of one that Trump has given.
I don't recall the Dems being upset when Obama was lighting up an American citizen Anwar Al Alaki and his teenage son with a Hellfire missile--now there was "an egregious abuse of power."
Or when they were shooting peaceful protesters in the face on J6..Nor when they held American citizens in jails for years for walking through the Capitol.
Yes. The Dems/Left have this long list of outrages against our rights and liberties, yet they still have the audacity to pretend as if the real threat to all that is good, is Trump.
But I guess that is the strategy--scream to the rooftops about the very thing that you are guilty of. Very cynical, but very clever, too.
That not anyone's side in the argument. Those who enlist in the military are educated and trained in what constitutes a legal order versus an illegal order; everybody in that video is aware of that. However, their video gives the impression that enlisted troops are mindless bumpkins who don't know any better.
They aren’t trying to overthrow the president! They are attempting to stop the most egregious abuses of power. And if you frame things in terms of “civil war” that just gives you an excuse to justify throwing away the constitution and resorting to violence. Isn’t that what war is?
The people "throwing away the Constitution" here are the seditious conspirators undermining the constitutionally-based chain of command... As to "violence"--last time I checked, it was conservative icon Charlie Kirk who was murdered for just wanting to have a conversation. Can you provide examples of someone on the Left that has been murdered (in this century) for his or her beliefs? The "violence" is coming from the Left.
Violence only on the left? Judges who have gone against Trumps desire have been threatened or attacked. Blow to Pelosi’s husband. My brown friend. who is a citizen, was tossed into a U-Haul dragged away while his kids were screaming. Minnesota congress couple killed in their home. Kelly’s wife, Gabbard. Just to name a few off the top of my head. The selective victimhood is amazing. And Trump is always being “not smart” about his responses so just add this one to the heap.
I got two of those texts from Mark Kelly today as well and I wondered why he is asking for $$ donations… for what- his legal defense for his seditious comments?!? Sorry Bro… non from me🇺🇸
Kelly is, indeed, investigated by the Pentagon since he's a retired Navy captain. The message to "disobey illegal orders" carries a different weight inside the military. And the military doesn't need any advice, they know it better. Wasn't Kelly supposed to know it and expect the investigation? It looks like it was all pre-planned.
I find it adorable how journalists view tweets and memes. The limitation on the number of characters doesn't allow for any complexity, so tweets come at the maximum strength being the most exaggerated and inflammatory. But nobody should take them literarily. I don't know who even reads tweets outside of the media and politicians. I certainly don't.
You are insane. Refusing illegal orders is a basic principle of our military. That’s the entire purpose of the JAGs is to determine if orders are legal. Where is the encouragement to mutiny? I’m mystified. How could you possibly interpret it that way? There have been illegal orders. The boat bombings are almost certainly illegal. Why do you think the original commander resigned?
False. Being unable to provide an example of "an illegal order" by Trump means that this was an open-ended incitement to mutiny--don't be "mystified," I just cleared it up for you. "The boast bombings are almost certainly illegal." "Almost certainly," I rest my case. That fact that some commanders resigned over the boat bombings is not an indication of anything other than that is their opinion. When some higher judicial authority reaches that conclusion, let me know. Until then, what Trump is doing is well within precedent. Wink wink calls for mutiny against the Commander in Chief are a despicable blow to our Constitutional order, far more serious than anything that occurred in Jan 6.
"Almost certainly, you are a fool." See how that works?
So, we’re supposed to assume those aren’t drugs and that’s not a rum runner with 3 250hp Evinrudes strapped to it? There was a line decades ago where management asked Dirty Harry why he shot the perp and he said something to effect that when a guy is chasing a woman with a hardon and butcher knife “he’s probably not the Welcome Wagon”. That’s my logic here: they’re out to kill another 100 Americans. Hasta la Vista!!
We've been sending our guys to fight wars with one hand tied behind their backs since Korea. You can hear vets of all ages saying, “They gave us a chance to die but never a chance to win.”
Deliberate screwed up policies by the Obama and Biden administrations that elevated non warfighting issues and personnel and failures not only in funding but decision making - like the pullout in Afghanistan - led to a hollowing out of our military.
I said “deliberate” because I think it was a deliberate effort to weaken the US's ability to project power; which is fundamental to a philosophy that is focused on an end to nationalism and the creation of a “new world order”.
The blossoming of military enlistments and a new focus on “Making America Great Again'“ necessitates some kind of new approach to weakening the force and this seditious action by ostensibly reliable people is one of them.
If there is a cold civil war forming it is between well funded forces who, on one side, want an end to the experiment called America and those who would preserve it.
To me, there is no doubt that the weakening of the US military, chiefly through morale-sapping DEI initiatives, is deliberate. This nation is being brought down from within by the infiltration of our major institutions--including our military-- by people who want to see the US collapse. This trend must be reversed.
I wasn’t unable to provide an example- I did and you just dismissed it. I’m guessing you would do that with any other example I provide. Why do the courts keep ruling against all the national guard deployments? Or do you no care when courts say something is illegal? All that matters is your own deranged opinion
You did not provide an example of an illegal order.. just an opinion as to one that might be illegal. Fail. And you have no other even possible example to offer. Double fail. But hey, don't take my word for it--co-conspirator Elissa Slotkin can't come up with one either, and no, referencing the scenario in A Few Good Men does not count.
District Courts are ruling against Trump, and they are frequently being overruled on appeal. National Guard deployments to defend citizens are not out of the ordinary, Hochul herself sent them into the NYC subway. Triple fail.
Your idea of making an argument is to hurl insults. Quadruple fail.
We’re sitting on the slippery slope here. Poking and prodding by a group of miscreants who’d like nothing better than to attempt for the 4th, 5th or 6th time to imprison the sitting President. Let’s not be coy, there were no ILLEGAL ORDERS, save for the ones inside their seditious souls.
If we allow this to go on unpunished, it will get worse. When the mob robbing its 4th Walgreens realizes there’s no downside, suddenly your town is a pharmacy desert. Prison for the six of them, at least as bad as the Jan. 6th charade - solitary. That way Mark Kelly won’t be able to fund raise quite as much. This has gone on too long already, file the charges and bring them to justice - or the next challenge will be one of physical force. I’m sick of being threatened by the leftist soy boys and their twat co-conspirators.
No more immigrants, paper ballots, ban sanctuary anything, we didn’t agree to funding their leftist Colvard-Piven schemes. Clean out Minneapolis, Portland, Chicago - now.
And to sharpen the horns of the dilemma, there is the absolute certainty that to disobey a legal order will land that young soldier in very deep trouble indeed. So, we end up with some combination of rebellion, confusion, paralysis - not a real great way to send young men to fight a war.
“I have plans to return from Thanksgiving guns-ablazing for a long Racket project that seems guaranteed to make me one of the most hated people in media, if not the most hated.”
Matt and Walter will have a podcast in the format of the old Crossfire tv debate show. Listeners will be encouraged to bet on which will be the first to use the line “Jane you ignorant slut”.
I look forward to Matt going after some topic guns-ablazing, so I hope he writes about a topic where he allows himself to do that, even if Walter sees things differently. I'd love to see Matt get his edge back.
It's nice to read the transcripts whenever I miss a live show because you can just skip over most of the Walter parts. He's almost always saying the same thing and it's almost always nothing. Matt should look at those transcripts once in a while though because they make it so blatant how much airtime Walter eats up with absolute blather and hogwash, and how seldom Matt gets to finish a sentence without being interrupted or talked over.
I love Matt, but you're missing the best part of you're skipping Walt, especially last Friday's show. And it's not like Matt disagrees with Walt. That's obvious.
I'm not missing anything, that's why it's nice to have it in text. I can look at it and see whether he's saying something or just bloviating through one of his standard time-filling routines, and it's often the latter. "I had a dinner party with a famous person", "the world must hear this obviously-wrong fanfiction about a topic or person I just learned about based on a clip I misunderstood", "I went to Oxford", "I'm from Montana/Minnesota/DC/Vegas/anywhere and as a true man of the people...", "My Roma blood / insightful writer's brain / whatever is giving me a great insight that will be proven wrong immediately", etc.--These always go on and on and on it's and it's all noise with no signal. Scrolling past 300 lines of it is much nicer than having to sit and hear it again for 20 minutes or else fiddle with the timebar and hope to get past it without missing the sentence or two that Matt will manage to get out that hour.
Like most partisans when you say Kirn is “wise” you mean his perspectives align with yours. Correct? Kirn is entertaining. Wise? No. Not even approaching wisdom. If he were worthy of that descriptor he would evince a little interest in what Matt has to say. You my friend are not a careful listener nor a reliable observer. What Kirn does is a laughable pretence of listening. To whit: every once in awhile he’ll repeat the last two words of a Matt assertion. The same behaviour a kid sitting at the back of a classroom might attempt when called upon to answer a question.
So Omnist and John Patrick Daly just said they don't like Walt in a very nasty way without referencing any point of disagreement of which there must be many so why didn't you mention one or two to refute my assertion that he is wise? No, you insulted me as a partisan (yes, I have a viewpoint as do you) who only wants to be agreed with. On the contrary. I like the truth, to hear it, read it. I find Walt to be very truthful and anyone who can rightly handle the truth in my book is wise. You two are just nasty and unkind with your many empty words when you could have just said you're a liberal and don't agree with Walt and are closed to hearing what he has to say. Then you wouldn't have had to be nasty and so superior.
Hilarious. And right on the money. If Kirn would just shut his battery-operated gob once in a blue moon and/or fake a little interest in what Matt has to offer then you might have an actual conversation/examination of an issue or event. It never happens.
"Make you" the most hated man in media? You're being too modest by putting it into future tense Matt. Just remember- we love you and that is why we reserve the right criticize you endlessly. Best wishes for the Holidays!
I think you need a new balance scale, Matt. Because that wasn't both sides. First, there is NO issue if that video wasn't produced. Second, the Left calling Trump Hitler for years then escalating to threats of Nuremberg-style trials for military personnel for crimes they can't specify yet. Sounds like a replay of the Trump lawfare schemes. "Vote for me and I'll get Trump for uh, uh, uh SOMETHING" said Alvin Bragg and Tish James. Third, you conveniently left out Mark Kelly on MSNOW where he doubled down on the threat, saying the military needs to be aware that Presidents only serve limited terms. Hint, hint, hint.
Sorry, it's not both sides when one side starts a fight, the other side fights back but harder, then the first side whines and cries on every sympathetic media outlet it can find.
Well, the usual Republican response is to turn over their lunch money to the bully. Trump and Vance throwing fists is out of character for the GOP, which might explain Matt's confusion.
I agree that both sides are ridiculous in their own ways. However, I don't remember during the 4 miserable years of Biden, ranting and raving lunatics on the Right spending all their waking moments trying to dethrone him. It's so tiresome and annoying. It's really hard not to hate the Left these days.|
Or dressing up in mascot costumes and face masks shrieking about fascism. The left apparently failed to notice thousands of people summarily fired by Biden’s vaccine mandates, which sounds fascist to me. Especially since the CDC, FDA, Congress etc. were exempt. No viruses there I guess.
Why do so many people think Democrats are "the left"?
I know why they want you to think that but why does it ever work? They're as far from the left as you can get on every actual political issue. Anytime someone with any centrist--not even left, just less extremely authoritarian right--positions turns up, the entire DNC rallies around like their hair is on fire to squash them from existence.
How can you make any sense of the world or anything if you think the extreme right extreme authoritarian Democrat party is "The Left"? Really.
Right, I get why they call themselves that but I think people should not be so willing to play along with using that label when it’s obviously not what they are.
However....uh oh, here it comes......First off JD was a Marine, so he's not just a politician tweeting crap out of hand. He knows how serious the Military Code of Justice is. So should all the others that are former military. And....if those former military members FOLLOWED the two 'former' intelligence peeps....well, duh.
And Trump gonna Trump. He is not going to change and suddenly become someone he is not. We have heard now a thousand times that his 'reckless behavior' is going to lead to war.....war with North Korea, war with Iran, war with Russia, war with China....and on and on and on......and each time we are 'literally on the brink,' we find out he had some backroom words already spoken to the proper people and poof, no war. If anything, he has STABILIZED things much more than any recent president. And yet, people cannot get over his bluster. He just blabs.....and yes, sometimes he blabs stupidly, but look at his ACTIONS. He also tells a lot of jokes and I'm betting that doesn't always translate to written word....in other words, sarcasm.
Everyone is so Henny Penny these days......I wish everyone would just relax. Here, in real America, we have other issues to deal with. I'm tired of paying property tax. I have an idiot client today who DOESN'T want me to splint her dog's leg again even though it's not completely healed. I have a lame horse at home that I am trying hard to fix. The plumbing in my horse trailer leaks like a sieve and I gotta figure out a way to put a topline on my main eventing horse. So.....
Anyway, a lot of us old farts(me) love Trump exactly BECAUSE he's not 'presidential' in any way because we got screwed over by the past presidents. We also think he's HILARIOUS and we know he's mostly joking....why can't anyone else take a damn joke anymore?
All you have to do is listen to him talk.....half of what he says is one liners....and suddenly, when he writes, he's not trying to be funny???
Geez.....I think not enough Xanax is currently circulating in this country. Perhaps we can put that in the water instead of flouride?
Everyone does have problems and we don't need people elected to serve the public making them worse with threats of hostile takeover, shutting down the government or fucking with our mental well being. I'm trying to sell a house in a a freaked out market. Even using a realtor people have tried to scam me three times. (I am finally in pending mode again and just waiting for the other shoe to drop on my head somehow.) My husband has early onset and I'm watching a brilliant star burn out and there's nothing I can do. I hide all the time how I feel so as not to frighten him or make him feel alarmed. I wake up early and get any sorrow or anger out of my system before anyone wakes up. Everyone has stuff they are dealing with and that's life. What we didn't sign up for is this bullshit being deliberately piled on us just because some want to rein over us and implement their brand of control. We do like that Trump isn't a cheap suit used car salesman but more like a person. Those used car salesmen for years sold our futures and whatever wasn't nailed down. He's not looking for a consensus or everyone to agree with him. My guess is whoever ran against the Democratic cabal would have been beaten down, called a Putin loving Nazi and lawfared to the max and maybe imprisoned. That kind of shit wears on a person and a country. At this point we are all reacting and I really don't want Xanax or therapy I just need for the instigators to stop punching us in the face.
Well said. I hope your house sells and praying for your husband. That's a lot on your plate, and you're right, we don't need this. When will they ever think about ANYONE else?!
Thanks for that. I wouldn't hold my breath or anything. We're just a means to an end for people who know nothing but self love and self congratulation. When we're completely looted they'll just eat each other.
My late husband battled multiple myeloma and ESRD for 9 years before finally succumbing. Loved the phrase "watching a bright star burn out." Watching my big strong alpha male husband slowly waste away was a lot like that.
It's hard to watch the progression. He is my sunshine. He was a brilliant software developer. When he got sick the boss called me asking "What's happening to our Mike?" His code was different before other signs showed. That helped us catch it early but the drugs can only slow things. He has moments though. He can still do stuff like help me out by upgrading my passcodes (to what he can't recall.) or taking apart the ceiling fan while I went to grab a gallon of milk from the grocery. Yes the power was still on and yes we enjoy shopping together now. At least he's still here. I'm sorry about your husband.
My husband had lesions in his brain, and started forgetting how to do stuff he’d been doing for decades — like backing the flat bed trailer into the yard without hitting the fence, so I can relate.
Candi I like your ability to completely articulate what the financial overlords are doing to us. My sincerest condolences for what you’re going through with your husband. I’m going through it with my wife.
Thank you, I'm afraid I'm not very graceful sometimes. I should probably have a better filter than just writing down what comes out. What stage is your wife in? Is she early enough to get the amyloid-beta protein test? It was new but that was some time ago. My husbands test was inconclusive by the time the insurance company approved his scans (it took like 6 months with me nagging. so you have to act quickly.) but if she can get treatments it can add months of stabilization. It's not a cure but it's something. My heart is with you. I absolutely understand.
Just happened upon this while gleaning the comments. What a truly tough time you’re living through. I wish you every comfort and the very best possible outcome. Most of all I wish you strength. ❤️
I'm used to it, as a (small l) libertarian, but in this election we had a glimmer of hope that maybe some serious people actually understood the problems and would go about fixing them.
It's normal and sane to hate them both. They're two sides of the same coin and they're almost indistinguishable on every single actual political material issue that isn't culture war wedge-baiting to get the plebs to hate each other. The insane thing is that anybody votes for either of them. Or that people like Matt will still say the two parties "hate each other" decades after anybody on the planet is dumb enough to believe that. Their voters may hate each other, yeah, they're meant to. But the parties themselves? Tom and Jerry situation.
It’s no secret where I stand these days. I’m an anti-Democrat. Not a conservative and I find it hard to vote republican (but I can still do it) yet this kinda stuff makes it so hard to care at all. It’s like wading into a pile of shit looking for your iPhone. It’s better to just get a new iPhone. I do disagree with Matt about the intent. If they are implying, or openly stating, that there will be potential legal action in the future, then they are suggesting to avoid that result, military members should disobey orders.
The point of the threat is to achieve a particular end. And it is dangerous because they are not being specific. God forbid some young progressive minded 20 year old from California refuse to follow a lawful order because it conflicts with their political parties position on something. That would go very BAD for them. They will get punished, and at best, dishonorably discharged. At worst, time in Leavenworth. That will be on their record their whole life. Slotkin will go on with her life. She will collect her paychecks, her pension, her benefits. She will be just fine. Don’t make the military personnel a pawn in this political game. There must be some limiting principle here. I’ve seen the democrats threaten everyone from the Supreme Court to the door guy at MaraLago. I’m not shocked, but please, not the military. They have a nasty job to do. Years ago when I was a soldier we were practicing clearing buildings and I was told that if we go into a room and someone starts shooting, we are to shoot back. Being a dumb, young enlisted smartass, I started throwing out hypotheticals. The answer was always to shoot back, not to hesitate or you could get all your guys killed. So eventually I asked, what if there’s a little kid between myself and the shooter? I was told that I was to shoot. It doesn’t matter if there’s a kid there or not. It doesn’t matter who’s there. Naturally I said I wouldn’t do that. I was told that the guy behind me coming through the door is someone’s kid too and I have a duty to protect him.
We glorify the military and we should because it’s often a nasty job. If we don’t glorify it, no one would do it and someone has to do it. It’s a hard life full of divorce, suffering, hard work. You can watch your buddies get killed or horribly wounded. Heck, it could be you who gets killed or lose a limb. Those folks need to be left alone and we need to protect them from politics.
If there was ever another civil war, the best way to decide it is to let congress fight it out on the real battlefield and let us watch from the sidelines. Last man or woman standing and all that.
"Slotkin will go on with her life. She will collect her paychecks, her pension, her benefits. She will be just fine." That's right, she would. And the soldier who listened to her and acted on her words? Not so much. Classic "luxury beliefs" in action right there.
Unless you're an actual fascist, which not many people really are, being anti-Democrat is a very normal thing and it's called being on the left. Why have people let themselves be psyopped out of this understanding, I genuinely do not know. The DNC are a far right authoritarian party. Yeah, we have two of them. If you're not a far right authoritarian, and most people aren't, you're not SUPPOSED to agree with either of them. Everyone knows it's fake that we're supposed to pick one or the other when neither of them are any different and neither of them agree with us on anything. Everyone knows that but everyone just does it anyway. I wish y'all would stop.
I will rerun this from an earlier posting of mine on a Racket News comment forum. It fits.
This is about Tribalism....but you have to understand what tribalism actually is. There is far more to it than you would think. It's an earlier and non-compassionate phase of human evolution. It disposes people to think and to see others in particular ways. Some claim that in this phase man lived in the "Reptile Brain". In other words, it was prior to the development of human empathy and human individualism.
Much of the Middle East, apart from Israel, is still tribal. They have brains which interpret life differently from the way a Western person's brain interprets life....and acts on it. The overlap would be between Cluster-B personalities in the West, with persons living in tribalism in the Middle East. Similar situation.
Unknown to most, outside of a few select Anthropologists and a Psychoanalyst or two....humanity can return to the tribalism stage. We can indeed go backwards.
Bit slow here just now, so I will add this link to a National Post (Canada) article today on the man who wrote and published the "Son of Hamas" book some years ago.
"'Son of Hamas' warns about Islamism's creeping hold on West:
Mosab Hassan Yousef says anti-Israel protesters are ‘taking advantage of Gaza’s tragedy ... using your freedoms to destroy your freedoms’"
His story always struck me as very similar to the story of the eldest son of Jim Jones of the 1978 Jonestown tragedy. They were both the heirs to their psychopathic fathers' totalitarian plans. They both awakened against the odds, despite having been raised in this kind of environment. They both walked away. I call it having the courage to become an individual, as opposed to remaining a member of a hive-mind being driven by a cruel disturbed leader and his herd.
-- What I’m trying to tell you is that the entire region is ruled by tribalism. This is not only unique for the Palestinians. It’s a death culture. They just find in Israel a common enemy, because they are Jews. But practically, if they don’t have the Jews to kill, they will kill each other.
-- He called Islamists “savages” that cannot be negotiated with. He said they perpetuated an “inverted narrative” that used projection to accuse Israel of genocide and colonization, but they were guilty of those very crimes.
Couldn't have said it better myself. Actually, I have been discussing the detailed concepts of tribalism on this Substack over a long while.
Tribalism was an earlier form of human development, before a newer and better development set-in about 5000 years ago in Mesopotamia under a particular enlightened ruler, Sargon of Akkad. He put tribalism aside, recognizing there was no empathy in this stage of human evolution -- just continual hatred and killing.. And that there might be a better way. Previously, anyone outside one's tribe had been considered "the other" and therefore the enemy.
This is the way that cults and totalitarian political groups still behave....they have gone backwards in evolution to the no-empathy stage.
After Sargon introduced the concept of human empathy to his people, it took hold. This eventually spread to Judaism and then to the emerging Christianity (which had similar values). In fact, there is a theory that a move to the idea of "practicing empathy" actually helped to build a new function in the human brain to reflect this.
Most of the Middle East then, and now, has stayed in the no-empathy stage. Might explain why the values throughout so much of the ME (except Israel) will never tally with classic Western values.
Tribalism is the basis of what we now call totalitarianism. Especially when the tribal leader is a dark Cluster-B personality. You see this in the WOKE-folk....gone back to the dark side of tribalism.
If we allow Western civilization and values to be lost, we lose mankind's most important evolutionary leap to date. Massive tragedy.
Well, that is what Hamas said. Can we believe them? Even if these execution victims were actual collaborators, I would think that being kicked out of Gaza could have been acceptable, although not execution. But totalitarians promote death cultures
The concept being played out here, to my mind, is that when the designated class of scapegoats dries up -- as in potential Jewish victims no longer being readily available -- a tribalist/totalitarian group still needs to psychologically project their own sins outward onto someone else, and then punish them for these fabricated wrongdoings. Therefore, they have to designate a new and available class of scapegoats in order to do this. So they look around and say. "Aha! We will use 'collaborators' for the purpose of projecting our own sins outward."
Saying they were ridding themselves of "collaborators" and making it look justified in this way was a predictable trick. The Soviets used to do the same thing when they were finished with their own "Useful Idiots"; they designated them as the new enemy class and then got rid of them.
I neither know nor care whether Hamas is lying. All I know is I’m tired of sending money to Israel, Hamas, Egypt, Jordan, and whoever else over there, while reading about them slaughtering each other — especially civilians. None of this is any of our concern. We have plenty of issues here to deal with.
Ironic that most of today's left operates on a lizard brain response in which (so called) empathy for the poor, dispossessed, or otherwise "othered" is the factor which determines their tribal dividing lines.
It is part of the ideology they adopt to be part of the WOKE herd. I don't think it occurs to them to actually live it out.
Much like the "Climate Change" eco types at WEF who tell you they want badly to save the earth, while flying private planes everywhere. And using more resources for a luxury lifestyle than a small nation does.
But if you fail to read up on it....as I do.....you are going to have to learn the hard way. Which is not very bright.
Why re-invent the wheel? We are in a bad predicament in 2025 in the West. Learn from those who put in the blood, sweat and tears to work this out. Doing so is one of the valuable concepts of Western civilization.
"...some of the conclusions and speculations made by the American neurologist, Paul MacLean. The gist of MacLean’s thought is that we do not have one brain, but three. His map of the head isn’t psychological, as Freud’s Ego, Id and Superego, but geographical – the three brains are actually in the head, and brain surgeons have known for a long time what they look like. MacLean’s contribution has been to suggest that each of these brains is to some extent independent. During evolution, the body often reshaped the body-fins, for example, in us, turned utterly into arms, but the forward momentum in evolution was apparently so great that the brain could not allow itself the time to reform – it simply added.
The reptile brain is still intact in the head. Known medically as the limbic node, it is a horseshoe shaped organ located in the base of the skull. The job of the reptile brain appears to be the physical survival of the organism in which it finds itself. Should danger or enemies come near, an alarm system comes into play, and the reptile brain takes over from the other brains – it takes what we might call “executive power.”
Thanks, Anne. Yes, I know of Paul MacLean's work. Sometimes considered controversial at this point, though I think his general concepts began this train of thought..
Iain McGilchrist has a few things to add by now, as do several other researchers. Stephen Porges for one. And I think that Julian Jaynes stumbled on some semblance of this back in the 70s. As did Lucian Levy-Bruhl in earlier years.
In the Robert Bly article you linked, there is the statement that "Fair suggests that what Freud meant by the 'Id' was the reptile and mammal brain".
I would agree that Freud's concept of the Id tallies with the cold-blooded "reptile brain". I posted about it here some months ago.
Freud's concept of the Id, to my understanding, is also analogous to the addiction state or to the Cluster-B personality disorders. No empathy.
Tribal peoples live in the Id. They have no development of the Superego, which is where empathy and morality live. The rules that a tribalist follows are simply about loyalty to their leader and herd, because this means survival. Most of them cannot imagine the Golden Rule.
BTW, I had not heard of Porges work, however, l looked him up & heartedly support his focus on the vagus nerve. I came to its import through personal somatic experience in Vedic teachings/practice -- a game changer for the nervous system.
🎯. . . and I ran into so much of C-Bs in government. Took me awhile to figure it out as so much of their chatter was empathy/sympathy speak. For instance, touting "it's for the children" when "it" was really about the Benjamins for the adults. Challenge the request too much & the underlying personalities would emerge. Many cloaked in the loudest "concerns for humanity" in whatever field they operated. One referred to by daily behavior as: "loves humanity/hates people!"
In these times, the psychopathy at higher levels is frightening & less hidden!
Psychopathy and pathological Narcissism is growing because swathes of society have jettisoned the usual moral structures. And the concept of a God. It moves them to the Id end of the Id/Ego/Superego spectrum (Freud). Where the Cluster-B personality types live.
Not that anyone needs to be a perfect angel and Superego. They just need to live in the balanced middle.
No, Israel is not tribal in the way I am referring to. The Jews, in fact, were one of the first groups to evolve out of the tribalist mentality. Which may be one reason there is so much well-honed intelligence amongst that ethnic community in general.
I think your proposition that the Jews grew out of tribalism is blatantly proven wrong by a simple observation of their history. Jews have lived as a minority diaspora for centuries and have for the most part remained steadfastly opposed to integration with their wider societies. No, many, perhaps most Jews are still very much tribal people.
Ian, I see that you have not read through my posts, where I defined tribalism. And I said it is not what many people think it is.
Your mistake here is in misunderstanding the term. Jews are very non-tribal. They were the first major ethnic group to advance to this new state of mental awareness/evolution, approximately 5000 years ago. Along with certain Mesopotamians. Leaving tribalism and its worldview behind was what allowed Jews to advance so much farther than most Middle Eastern groups.
You need to go back and read what tribalism actually is.
Maybe Israel you see as a tribe because their neighbors would like to kill them all. Otherwise, they would go to their politics....which is about like current America. After they had one assassination. We had many ones.
Same old discussion I’m sure many many people have had where one person points out the modern aggressive and colonialist behavior of Israel. If one is to be honest about the current situation one should admit the history of illegal settlements and aggressive land grabs. Is the Islamic response to this also unhinged? Why yes absolutely. But Israel is not white dove.
Your definition of tribalism is a tendency for a culture to have a valence of reptilian in-group thinking? I invite you to peruse any number of videos of Israelis displaying just such behavior about the recent war in Gaza.
Republicans should put out a video directed at blue state law enforcement officers, telling them that their job is enforce the law, regardless of the fact that their mayors and governors might tell them to selectively enforce the law.
Tell them their obligation is to the taxpayer and the law, not their mayor or governor's political party.
And then watch the fireworks
In a world where a certain party can get 34 FELONY convictions for "falsified business records" , I think it's very possible that these videos could meet the bar of some federal court somewhere of sedition or if not attempting to cause insurrection .
Explain to me how a person who walked through the capital on 1/6 could get multiple years in a harsh prison but behavior like this gets a total pass?
Hell, these same people had no issues when Saint Barack was droning weddings in the Middle East.
It was a childish stunt and the left can't get butthurt over a childish response.
And don't forget Joe Biden's retaliation after the Abbey Gate slaughter (that was his fault and that of his military leaders) which led to the deaths of 10 Afghanis, including an aid worker, and 7 children. Who gave that order and should it have been followed?
That was Epstein's call.
It seems to have gone over absolutely everyone else's head on the globe, but Trump's high octane reaction is fairly obviously calculated.
On Wednesday, Nov. 19th, the only two types of stories in the media were Epstein stories and "Trump says OK release the Epstein files but shut up about it" stories. The froth on Epstein was over the rooftops and Trump clearly hated it.
As of Thursday, Nov. 20th and ever since, Trump said hang these folks for sedition and the Epstein story is almost nonexistent. He went big on this one to change the conversation, clearly.
Pretty standard from the Trump playbook, but once again he's got a masterful touch and his enemies are completely playing the game only according to rules he's creating. I'm not taking a side to say this, just calling it like I'm seeing it happen.
I know, because finding out that Stacey Plaskett was a direct employee of Epstein and Ghislain (yes, the UK heiress with the connected father.) and that Larry Summers was needing to "spend more time with his family." was a devastating blow to the President and you are correct "Someone" really needed to change the conversation but I'm pretty sure it's not who you think.
Yeah and we're all just reacting.
No. Not really. The Dems have dropped Epstein for a new, well planned narrative. The new narrative is illegal orders. Whistle blowers are now coming forward. Trump didn't change the narrative. The Dems did in consortium with the MSM.
He was texting that order in.
Or how bout droning an American citizen without a trial?
Or a teenage American citizen. Furthermore, even with a trial, the Supreme Court has ruled that minors cannot get the death penalty.
Fuckin’-A, Mick. No arrest, no charge, no indictment, no trial, no verdict, no sentence.
But not surprising, since Half-Black Jesus’s minions tried to remove a Preaidential candidate from ballots with a similarly empty bag of legality.
Drone Americans while they're sitting there in court.
or a car full of children in Kabul . . . mistakes were made.
That was different to them. They believe our military that we pay for, is like the guest towels in my mothers bathroom. They are for other people. It's okay to drone weddings in other countries or play in forever proxy wars but they draw the line when you actually defend people in this country by blowing up cartel boats because... "both parties in Venezuela are corrupt and we just want their minerals for US... " God forbid we do anything for ourselves or it's racist and evil because our place in this world is to work and make sure we have clean guest towels, and pay for the plunders of others while tripping over our own sick, poor and homeless people and ignoring the fact that the cargo on those boats being blown up right now are being sent to destabilize, make/perpetuate addiction or even kill the sick and poor in this country. (Cartels. the new job creators.) That pain we are supposed to be immune to and ignore because it's migrants and drug cartels who have the benefit of OUR Constitution (and whoever is at the top of the food chain collecting their share of the enormous amounts of fuck you money those drug boats are carrying) Those poor foreigners who are breaking our laws are being abused and we are nothing but the world's favorite useful idiots who need to behave accordingly. I can't not see any of that absurdity but I'm expected to.
We have no proof of what is on those boats being blown up, unless the feds release the intel that led them to believe it was drugs. Even if it was drugs, we can wait until they are closer to our borders, and have them interdicted by the Coast Guard.
They have the intel. If they see it happening off of their coastline maybe they will stop trying and we don't have to do it at all. Deterrence to me is preferable but you have to show you mean it before that works. When we do it only on our coastline they'd prolly head straight for Canada. I think commercial ships need to be scrutinized more closely. I'm not unsympathetic. I'm also not unsympathetic to people here living in tents. if we truly believe addiction is an illness and they get to a point that they can't stop themselves even long enough so the shelters will take them in... They have souls as well.
The "certain death from above" is the real deterrent to those illegally entering American territory on small boats. The Coast Guard, boarding a vessel that may or may not engage in evasive maneuvers, not so much.
Besides. Depending on the state they might get to trial in could drop the charges 'due to the intimidating circumstances of your arrest' or some variation of 'orange man bad, here have some free whatever'
But they aren't "illegally entering American territory." They are in the Carribean, in small boats not even equipped to make a sea bound journey for American shores/waters.
And I know you didn't mention it, the other lady above did - but if "they have the intel" to prove these were drug-laden boats destined to dump their poison into the American populace, why on earth would they be so stingy about displaying that evidence to the American public? Even in this polarized American discourse we have, the VAST majority of Americans would be happy to get behind "actual" action taken against "actual" dangerous drug cartel members.
After all, with over 40M+ Americans suffering from substance use disorders regarding drugs, pretty much EVERY American knows someone/a loved one adversly effected by illegal narcotics....
But these boats are thousands of miles away. At least the bombings I read about were. They were nowhere near our shores.
Excellent piece.
Red hot pokers for the lot of them.
The Left objected vigorously to Barack's drone war - which Bush started and Trump continued. The Right seemed pretty silent about it.
Funny you brought that up, because, if memory serves, Taibbi was one of the few journalists to question Obama's unchecked drone warfare, particularly the targeting of American citizens overseas.
It may have been strike one against Matt, who was very much of the Left at that time. Nobody questioned it, left or right.
Wrong. The right was upset about your half black Messiah killing children. The Left ignored it.
Wrong, you racist shithead. Read some of Chris Hedges' stuff on Obama's drone warfare. Or Chomsky's. Or Greenwald's. Or Scahill's. Jfc.
You're the shithead, dear. All Democrats are evil. Democrats are the ones that are racist. Poor thing. Reality is difficult for you, obviously.
Because these six are part of the protected club. The J6 sight-seers were just fodder for the Unselect Committee that destroyed all their records... See how this works? Ya gotta be part of the club to skate.
I'm voting for The convicted felon!;!!!! Even though in Massachusetts because we have 400,000 illegal aliens that vote my vote doesn't count
I heard that a lot of recent congressional candidates have I.C. connections - could it be that the CIA is funding US congressmen surreptitiously, with cut-outs and NGO-laundered money?
I think it would be idiotic to not assume that CIA has captured senate and house seats by loyal operatives.
Check out the organization New Politics.
By the way, it's a misconception that there were serious punishments for illegal orders or actions under them for the My Lai massacre in 1968.
One soldier served a three year sentence. All commanders were acquitted completely. Not saying they weren't guilty - apparently you can issue illegal orders and follow them for the most part, if the brass will have your back.
The soldier found guilty could not substantiate that he was just following illegal orders because when the commanders were acquitted, that meant no illegal orders were deemed to be given.
You don't pay that much attention to this do ya?
You don't really understand the "34 felony convictions" blather, and it shows.
That was a long way to say "two wrongs make a right."
In particular, just keep in mind this was all started by, as Matt might put it, an unforced error.
Per usual, Democrats (and I used to reliably vote Democrat back in those crazy ol' "rational days") put out an ostensibly salacious and provocative video that lacked any clarifying details or qualifications.
...and then get bent out of shape by the response.
There was ZERO need for the video. I can't think of any reason to put out such a video except to as a provocative action.
Yes, per usual as well, Trump's response was thoroughly Trumpian.
But if you don't poke the bear in the first place...
It wasn't an unforced error. The provocation and the vagueness were deliberate. They wanted to generate responses that they could politicize.
yeah, part of a calculated psyop. always psyop, only psyop. long past time time to stop playing on the rigged game table, turn the mutherfucker over and beat some bitches bloody.
They were using the Speech and Debate clause, their except were not protected in speaking to the public.
I believe the Speech and Debate Clause pertains to comments/speech that is spoken from the floor of respective chambers. I may be mistaken...
As usual, the reason for the video was distraction and misdirection from Epstein falling hard on the heads of countless Democrats. Equally as usual, the slimeball Dems overplayed their hand to the extreme. Do they still not comprehend that words have consequences? I hope Kelly loses his pension and they all suffer severe harm to their reputations, especially if some poor GI fires a round at some innocent American in a misguided attempt to uphold the Constitution.
What they said had a place and time to be said, but they didn’t have the authority to state to the military, considering many of them are 19 year olds.
The FBI has to investigate the case anyway (in kids gloves, asking questions on Zoom, no armed men sent to houses before dawn) and those Democrats now get media appearances where they can claim any bs. This would've happened regardless of whatever Trump says or doesn't say. Journalists make a big deal of X and its equivalents while the rest of the population doesn't care and doesn't take it literarily.
Provocative for sure. Good luck being more outrageous, provocative, or vindictive than Trump.
It’s two drunken troubadours who are performing for 45% each of the population. And deluding themselves that more than 45% are paying attention and agreeing.
I won't disagree about the underlying "bad theater" which is on full display.
The issue for me is that the initial provocation, the video calling for disobeying illegal orders was at a different level.
It's one thing for people to be obnoxious, provocative or vindictive. Fine, that's up to them.
But Slotkin-et-alia are not just "playing in the media", they're playing with fire.
** This video was a statement by members of Congress that explicitly directed members of the armed forces and intelligence services -- who answer to the executive branch -- that they should not follow "illegal orders". But Slotkin-et-alia never gave any specific examples thereof nor a clear description of what they felt constituted such illegal orders. It was very vague but encouraged disobeying the executive branch. Why? Slotkin later said she wasn't aware of any illegalities...so why make the video? Slotkin is former CIA and apparently didn't have any problems with the drone programs. At least she never made any videos when at the CIA.
** As sitting members of Congress, Slotkin-et-alia are involved with voting on matters of foreign policy. They are not mere "influencers" on the internet but officials. As such, there statements carry real weight -- weight that was obviously seen by heads of governments around the world. In just about any country on earth, an overture by members of the government to disobey the leader of the country would very likely be met with...consequences. All of the participants in the video were very careful to state what their earlier roles were in the armed forces or intelligence services and identified themselves in their current roles in Congress. That's relevant. It wasn't as though they said, "Yeah, since I'm at home just thinking as a citizen...", they were very explicit in their self-descriptions and emphasized their official roles.
So, yes, at the level of "personalities" and "media", this is mud wrestling.
But the context is vastly more serious, I think.
So, yes, Trump will certainly be Trump but in this case I think he had to respond. I think Slotkin-et-alia crossed a very serious, very clear line.
I would also add that Slotkin-et-alia used their position in power to issue a veiled threat to the military. It's not some teen girl talking on TikTok.
The statements were made to the general population as well to criticize what the President has to do (to remove the mess Biden left him).
If these same IC and government folks saw a similar vid from officials in China or Russia, there would be talk of an impending coup.
I wonder if Slotkin-et-al thought about the statute of limitations? I mean, they are making veiled threats to the military and intelligence agencies to disobey "illegal" orders and to remember the democrats will be back in power eventually.
How will she feel when the same or less incident is used to arrest military personnel so the next republican can arrest her for doing the same or worse?
Does that make sense?
The combination of the "casual ambiguity" as to what constitutes an "illegal order" as projected in the Slotkin-et-al video combined with the completely clear message that such whatever-they-are orders should be refused and that the Democrats will "have your back" was presumably set up to give the participants in the video enough wiggle room as to provide "plausible deniability" but also, depending on the "interpretation", also convey a not-so-veiled threat (i.e., we'll know who is on which side on the basis of who obeys whose orders).
So the game-theoretic underpinnings per your question seem, to me at least, so completely wide-open as not really allow for any clear conclusions to be drawn!
It's perfect "passive-aggressive propaganda".
And coming from "former intelligence agents" too!
Not that they would be familiar with psy-ops, extra-judicial executions or color-revolutions!
Trump is not to be underestimated in his ability to smash-mouth street-fight NYC-style. I mean, weren't they paying attention to the 2016 debates? The guy is reflexively brutal. They ain't gonna win. He can draw blood quicker than any human in public life. And contrary to your point, more 45% do like that about him.
Democrats excel at death by 1000 cuts. The only way to fight that is with a hatchet.
More like 5 percent of the pop engaged for the two teams - the rest glancing at the issue now and then while planning thanksgiving. Matt's right - both sides are acting like dopes by treating voters as dopes. Vance, in particular, better wake up and start doing some other than acting as Trump's mini-me.
I disagreed with the statement about the action being sedition, because other statutes state the illegality of their actions. Nonetheless, he had to say something that night as Commander in Chief.
Here's a transcript of the video.
"[Recital of names and experience]...
We want to speak directly to members of the military and the Intelligence community, who take risks each day to keep Americans safe. We know you’re under enormous stress and pressure right now. *Americans trust their military. But that trust is at risk. This administration is pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens. Like us you all swore an oath to protect and defend this constitution. Right now, the threats to our Constitution aren’t just coming from abroad, but from right here at home.*
Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders. You can refuse illegal orders. You must refuse illegal orders. No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our constitution. We know this is hard and that it’s a difficult time to be a public servant. But whether you’re serving in the CIA, the Army, Our Navy, the Air Force, your vigilance is critical. And know that we have your back. Because now, more than ever, the American people need you. We need you to stand up for our laws, our Constitution, and hwo we are as Americans. Don’t give up. Don’t give up. Don’t give up the Ship.”
They claim this was a clear restatement of the law, but they're much more than halfway in before they even mention that. They're painting a picture, it's clear, from the * section I marked.
Thanks for the handy transcript. Looks like standard Big Blue Mommy emotional manipulation right there, complete with "say it three times" ceremonial magic incantations. (Yikes.) "You poor things! Under so much stress! You don't have to do what Daddy says, ya know... We need you! Don't give up!"
So can we go after the crew that was eavesdropping on every call in America during, who was that, Obama's administration? Weren't they going after American citizens without cause?
How about Jack Smith? Spying on Republican congress people? Does that fit the matrix they mention?
So in reference to the video I asked Grok on Nov 18th
perhaps there have been changes but...
"is this illegal?"
GROK response
No, the actions described in Sen. Elissa Slotkin's video—urging U.S. service members and intelligence professionals to refuse illegal orders and uphold their oath to the Constitution—are not illegal. This message aligns with longstanding U.S. military law, which explicitly requires service members to disobey "manifestly unlawful" orders (those clearly violating the Constitution, federal law, or international standards like the Geneva Conventions). It does not constitute incitement to insurrection or any other crime, as it frames refusal as a legal duty tied to oaths of service, not a call to rebel against lawful authority.
Key Legal Context
Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ): Article 90 prohibits disobeying a superior commissioned officer but exempts "patently illegal" orders.
Article 92 requires obedience to lawful general orders or regulations but mandates refusal of unlawful ones, such as those involving war crimes, unconstitutional domestic deployments, or civilian targeting.
Service members' oaths bind them to "support and defend the Constitution... against all enemies, foreign and domestic," prioritizing law over blind obedience.
The "Nuremberg defense" ("just following orders") is invalid; troops can (and have) been prosecuted for obeying illegal commands, as in cases like My Lai or Abu Ghraib.
Surveys show 80% of U.S. troops understand this duty to disobey, and training reinforces it from basic levels onward.
Refusal carries risks if the order is later deemed lawful, but obedience to illegal ones exposes individuals to prosecution.
Why the Video Isn't Illegal
No Incitement: The lawmakers (Slotkin, Sen. Mark Kelly, and Reps. Chris Deluzio, Chrissy Houlahan, Maggie Goodlander, Jason Crow—all with military/intelligence backgrounds) explicitly reference legal refusals of illegal orders, invoking the oath and laws like the Posse Comitatus Act (barring military domestic law enforcement without congressional approval) and the Insurrection Act's limits.
They do not urge defiance of lawful commands or violence; it's a reminder of existing protections, akin to congressional inquiries or Inspector General reports for questionable orders.
Congressional Speech Protections: As lawmakers, they enjoy broad First Amendment immunity under the Speech or Debate Clause (Article I, Section 6) for legislative acts, including public advocacy on military policy.
This video, titled "Don't Give Up the Ship" (a War of 1812 reference), is political speech on constitutional threats, not sedition—especially amid Democratic bills like the No Troops in Our Streets Act to curb domestic military use.
Context of Concerns:
The appeal responds to Trump-era actions like airstrikes near Venezuela (potentially violating UCMJ on unlawful killings) and National Guard deployments to U.S. cities (e.g., Los Angeles, ruled unlawful in 2025 court decisions for breaching Posse Comitatus).
Slotkin has pressed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for legal assurances, receiving dismissals.
Experts like Duke's Peter Feaver note Congress should probe such policies but criticize the administration's overreach, not the lawmakers' message.
On Stephen Miller's "Insurrection" Claim
Miller's accusation is hyperbolic rhetoric, not a substantiated legal argument. Legal analyses of the video find no basis for insurrection charges (18 U.S.C. § 2383, requiring armed rebellion against U.S. authority), as the message promotes lawful constitutional fidelity, not violence or overthrow.
Similar claims by Miller (e.g., labeling judicial rulings as "legal insurrection") have drawn condemnation as "authoritarian propaganda" that endangers officials without legal merit.
No prosecutions or formal investigations have followed the video, despite its 3+ million views and polarized replies.
In short, this is protected advocacy reinforcing military ethics amid partisan tensions over executive power. If orders are truly illegal, refusal is the law—not insurrection.
Grok is by far the worst AI for this kind of thing. Speech and debate is for legislative purposes. Typically the only sure protection is on the floor or in chambers, not on social media.
It has no part here because claiming it covered this would be also saying they would be able to make an outright statement that people shouldn’t follow any military order under Trump, because that would be protected by “speech and debate”. It is most certainly not protected.
The issue here is too nuanced for Grok. It’s did they go over a line in totality. And just couch it in that language. If you stop the video in the middle it says something totally different, then they wrap it in this narrow fig leaf.
Here's a take from ChatGPT that gives a fuller picture, in part due to the phrasing od the task:
What are the factors that weigh in favor and against the Seditious Six video being problematic
Good question. The controversy around the Seditious Six video — the video released by six U.S. lawmakers urging military / intelligence personnel to “refuse illegal orders” — is complicated. Below are key factors in favor and factors against viewing the video as “problematic,” along with why each side sees things differently. I’m summarizing what has been argued publicly so far.
✅ Arguments in favor of concern / that the video might be problematic
Risk to military discipline and chain of command
As noted by Pete Hegseth (Secretary of War), the video may have “injected doubt into the armed forces,” undermining cohesion. He argues that vague messaging — “refuse illegal orders” — could sow confusion or hesitation among service members. AOL+2Fox News+2
The argument is that civilian-political messaging encouraging refusal of orders (especially if undefined) might erode trust and obedience — vital to military structure — potentially endangering operations and unit integrity. Yahoo+2https://newsbusters.org/+2
Ambiguity / lack of clarity about what orders are “illegal”
Critics note that the video does not reference any specific “illegal order.” Without clarification, it becomes more a general call for disobedience “if you think orders may be illegal,” rather than a concrete, legally-grounded instruction. AOL+1
That ambiguity raises the risk that troops might misapply this instruction — refusing lawful orders under subjective interpretation — which could lead to breakdowns in command or chaotic adherence. Fox News+1
Potential politicization of the military
By making such a video — from lawmakers, not military command — there’s a concern that the military becomes entangled in partisan politics or used as a political tool. It could blur the boundary between civilian political disputes and military professionalism. This is one of the main concerns cited. AOL+1
For some critics, the act appears less as a constitutional-ethics call and more like a “politically-motivated influence operation” aimed at undermining the current administration’s authority over the armed forces. Yahoo News+1
Legal and ethical doubts under military law
At least one of the lawmakers in the video, Mark Kelly (retired Navy), remains subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Officials say his participation “may bring discredit upon the armed forces,” and are examining possible misconduct. https://newsbusters.org/+1
For critics, this suggests that advocating disobedience — even if framed as “only illegal orders” — may still cross lines legally or ethically when delivered by a person with military background to current servicemembers. https://newsbusters.org/+1
✅ Arguments in favor of the video / that it may be justified or even necessary
Affirming duty to refuse unlawful orders — a long-standing legal principle
As supporters note (and many legal experts have argued), U.S. law and military doctrine recognize that service members must refuse “patently illegal” orders. Reminding troops of that duty can be viewed as upholding the rule of law and constitutional/ethical obligations. TIME+1
The individuals in the video are veterans or ex-military/intel officers — arguably giving them context and credibility when discussing legality and ethics of orders. That background lends weight to their comments for some viewers. The National Pulse+2Newsmax+2
Preventing potential abuses of power and protecting constitutional norms
Proponents argue the video serves as a safeguard: by publicly reminding the military of their legal limits, it may deter unlawful or unconstitutional orders from being carried out. Especially in polarized or high-stakes political situations, that kind of transparency can act as a check.
In that view, encouraging critical evaluation and lawful refusal is part of preserving democratic oversight over the military — not undermining it. Some legal commentators have said the video doesn’t amount to sedition. TIME+1
Legitimate free speech and congressional prerogative
The lawmakers in the video are civilians (even if ex-military), exercising their rights to speech and public duty. As elected officials, they ask important questions about legality and oversight. From that perspective, their remarks fall under protected political speech.
Given that they did not call for disobedience of specific lawful orders, but only urged refusal of “illegal orders,” many legal experts say this is not criminal but a constitutionally protected reminder. TIME+1
Transparency and preparing service members for potential future dilemmas
In a climate of contentious political decisions, especially involving military or intelligence operations, the video may be seen as a preemptive effort to prepare troops for potential wrongdoing, and encourage ethical conduct.
For supporters, the video’s generality (lack of a named order) is not a bug but a feature: it’s not about one particular administration or policy — it's about reaffirming a principle that spans administrations.
⚠️ Key Tensions & Why It’s Hard to Draw a Clear Line
What counts as “unlawful” vs. “disliked” orders? The ambiguity is real. Because the video doesn’t specify any order, it leaves too much open to interpretation — which is precisely the concern from critics. Without objective standards, “unlawful” could be subjectively decided, potentially undermining order.
The difference between legal principle and practical impact. Even if – in principle – troops should refuse unlawful orders, in practice calls like this could lead to hesitation, confusion, or politicization of the military, especially if public pressure/influence plays a role.
Risk of eroding trust in the chain of command. Once messaging like this becomes normalized, it could weaken the presumption of obedience and trust — which many argue is vital for a professional military.
Free speech vs. responsibility. While elected officials have the right to speak, when they address active-duty service members (especially using military credentials), there’s a question of whether that crosses a line into undue influence or even de facto command — raising legal and normative concerns.
🎯 My Take: The Video Highlights a Real Dilemma — And Whether It’s Problematic Depends on Context & Implementation
I think the video taps into a legitimate and important concern: the need for service members to be aware of their legal and moral obligation not to obey unlawful orders. That principle helps preserve constitutional norms and prevents abuses. At the same time, the ambiguity in the video — no specific orders cited — raises real risks: it could weaken discipline, sow confusion, or politicize the military if widely adopted as a norm.
In short: the idea is defensible and arguably necessary for democratic oversight; the delivery is risky and could have unintended negative consequences.
Today's Democrats are not the Same of those old days. Once upon a time they believed that you could have your own opinions, but not your own facts. Today... The Democrat base doesn't actually read (as evidence by the scores of the schools in most Democrat cities), so they just have to give them the headline and let them go.
Excellent and timely quote!
Yes, what happened so that we don't have people like Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the Democrat party? That's type of the liberalism I remember!
They are younger now, and have this belief beaten into them by the sham of an education system that "experts" know everything, and you should always believe someone with credentials, even if your Full of Shit Meter is off the charts.
Left-wing people dog-whistle constantly, then (falsely) accuse their critics of dog-whistling constantly.
How does one say that Donald Trump attempted an insurrection but that this isn't one?
Because the left doesn't care about consistency, it cares about power. Trump is the first Republican to understand that.
Actually, Lincoln understood it very clearly. So did Coolidge and Eisenhower.
Grant took the most blunt and decisive steps to bring the left into complete compliance with the laws and therefore remains one of the greatest of all American leaders.
It was however a great failing of both Nixon & Reagan and even more especially of Bush I&II.
Even better, how about a "Rape is illegal, even when done by Senators, and even when done by older white men from Arizona. If you are raped, we will protect you. You can refuse to be raped by Senator Mark Kelly from Arizona. If Senator Mark Kelly from Arizona tries to rape you, you can report it and will be protected. It is illegal for Senator Mark Kelly to rape you!"
Then you get to defend it by calling it a public service announcement because it's clearly true that rape is illegal, even for VIPs. We're simply restating well-known law here, folks, nothing to see or push back on.
Yes, I wrote something akin to this on X that I thought was a useful analogy as it presented a situation a lot of parents could relate to:
Imagine if someone cut a video ad with the "seditious six" that said "If you are the children of these people, we want you to know that if you may have been touched inappropriately, or think you may be subject to some form of abuse -- mental or physical, there are people that can help." Then flash the number for then child protective services hotline...
Heck, imagine if Trump had the Children’s Bureau in HHS do this.
I think then they'd see how insidious these tactics that leverage the dark arts of social psychology can be.
Except that it is inviting more insane division i agree. What I don’t agree with is back and forth statements that keep discourse from happening.
Yes, I wouldn't really do it, I'm just pointing out that their message has the same characteristics.
Fantastic idea. Run it at halftime all weekend.
Both sides are entirely mock-worthy - and I think Matt's on exactly the right track - whether we're talking about failing schools, or pill-popping white folks like Vance's mom - still clean, I hope, god bless her.
I'd love Walter and Matt to do weekly lists of three clown shows from each party/side. The tech billionaires are ideal targets.
MTG alone this week confirms just how goofy elected MAGA maniacs can be - "I'm not getting my own way. Trump is ripping MAGA apart"
Nothing quite says "I'm actually a flake" like going from "I'm taking a stand" to "I quit" within a week.
My only advice to Matt and Walter: rip out their innards and show no merci.
Agree with most of your post, but disagree regarding MTG.
Trump's attacks on MTG, Massie, and Paul were all totally out of line.
All any of them has done is stand on principles like smaller government, and fewer tax dollars flowing out to corrupt entities. Instead of paying attention to their critiques of that Big Dumb Ugly Bill, he insisted that it be passed just as it was -- full of all sorts of BS expenditures. Ever since then, he's had it in for all 3 of them.
MTG has been consistent on important issues. Sometimes, she's ridiculous, but she's usually right on target with her criticisms of Trump. Instead of attacking her, he should have treated her with respect, and listened to her.
Exactly. He attacks some of the most honest people up there. MTG, Massey,Paul are all America First people.
Cheers, we'll have to disagree on this point. My foundational position is that Trump is in the WH by an act of god, a head turn at the last moment - that's all that prevented auto-pen from getting a second term - and that's how fragile and short-lived the current administration is.
In public, here's what good soldiers say:
"The president and I have our differences, and I understand the frustrations of some of his supporters. I'm fully confident that President x shares many of our concerns and is working as hard as he can to address them."
Maybe rinse and repeat until after the mid-terms coz with MTG & the rest of the "are we there yet" whiners backseat driving, all the "good" they're doing is depressing the 2026 GOTV efforts for low-propensity voters who are all that stands between us and more of the same, but just a lot worse.
We're so not out of the woods it's not close to being funny. Shots ring out twice this time last year.
Remember?
Nah he was beating anybody the democrats had it didn’t matter at all.
The two political skits - McDonald’s and the dump truck - were the greatest campaign ads in history. Absolutely astonishing to watch in the polls. That alone guaranteed victory but it’s such a shame they were wasted on jr high opponents
Trump is a practical politician of a high order, as his winning the Presidency twice (maybe three times) proves. His orientation is toward holding a coalition together while he gets as much good done as he can, even if that requires compromise.
MTG, Massie, and Paul are purists, ideologues who “make the perfect the enemy of the good”.
MTG, Massie and Paul with a handful of others represent the few willing to stand against wars of choice, wars against adjectives, deficit spending to oblivion and civil liberty abominations like FISA courts, intelligence agency spying on US citizens and ever expanding government takeover of what we can do, say and think 24/7.
That they in your mind are “purists, ideologues…” tells us the sorry state of our electorate.
Expressing sentiments is fine, but I tend to favor the guy who actually gets something done.
The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.
H. L. Mencken
What good is being done? Just doing something isn't helpful. Its usually unhelpful. Idiots scream for the government to do something then complain about the consequences.
I love Trump and voted for him three times. I understand the impulse to defend him and his actions after all of the dirty, underhanded tricks and unreasonable criticism he has faced since defeating Hillary. I agree that the Dem video was despicable. Yet I still wish, just once, Trump would not overreact and add more fuel to the fire. I'm with Matt on this one, both sides suck and should STFU for a few minutes. Thanks Matt!
Expecting a guy who made it to the WH twice in the face tons of outside advice telling him he's "doing it wrong" - especially when he's been in office less than a year is perhaps asking a bit too much. Non-stop mouthing off is Trump's brand and weapon of choice in case folks haven't noticed.
It is weird. With federal law enforcement the argument is constantly made that the Department of Justice should work independent from the President. But a mayor's right to micro manage its big city police department is never questioned.
Typos…but you’ll figure it out if you want to
The law enforcement officers do their jobs, however, the courts go by the "Catch and Release" policy of no-bail and no-jail and these offenders get arrested again (+70 times) to prey on the citizens of the states.
I think they do/did but you have the prosecutors and judges to deal with.
Trolls just can't bring themselves to say Touche. It's a shame that a great comment can't have a video like a drug boat exploding.
I like the way you do bizness
Oh: you’ll see fireworks, alright! You’ll see National Guard troops being arrested in myriad states, s they follow the rule of law of those states as they retain to the appropriate and lawful deployment of federal rooms on unsanctioned and/or unlawful ways…
Talk about a plan that would backfire!
I couldn’t understand what you were trying to say
Yeah that’s what’ll happen. Apparently you don’t get out much.
No, that won't happen. Politicians are way too crafty to take that cheese. The message was aimed at the 19 yr old recruit who maybe loves Jesus but hates the brass.
"deployment of federal rooms"... we need federal shrooms not federal rooms!
Happy Thanksgiving Matt and Racket! The thrater kid color revolution is growing tiresome after a decade. They know exactly what they are doing because the CIA has honed the craft in disasters around the world.
If the Slotkin video looks like CIA, acts like CIA, sounds like CIA - then maybe someone needs to take a hard look at the CIA. We need to know who produced the video. This business of rationalizing / excusing / explaining-away any & all kinds of evil crap that the democrats do (looking at you, judge) needs to stop.
Absolutely. Whose script , who was videographer, etc.
We are living in a third-rate Lifetime movie.
Crossed with a slapstick comedy.
More of a farce, along the lines of "The Death of Stalin."
with a dystopian end time prequel that shows when and how shit got so bad. The generation at fault. Why they let it happen to future generations. kind of a WW thing with an ideocracy twist.
When Kelly was doing his, "I'm a patriotic combat hero" shtick afterwards, all I could think of was, I bet you there are a bunch of Russian Communist war heroes that sound exactly the same. Oh, and also, I thought, Duke Cunningham was a war hero too.
😂😂😂 Lifetime movies should be referenced more.
Is there any other kind? 🤣
Exactly my take when an elected junior senator references a MOVIE for goodness sake for her justification.
The video of Slotkin and Kelly was designed to be provocative. And the wretched Hillary Clinton amplified their excrescence with her chiming in hoping Trump would soon be “off the stage”.
Hoping all these creeps, who have foisted multiple corrupt acts on us over the past decade, will go the heck home for the weekend and stuff themselves with turkey while they count their filthy lucre.
Whenever I think of Hillary Clinton, I think of Tom Petty’s “American Girl,” and smile.
Hil played that song at rallies in ‘08, and maybe again in ‘16. The lyric that makes it so perfect for her unquenched, never-to-be-slaked thirst for the White House:
🎶 God it’s so painful / for something to be so close / and still so far out of reach 🎶
I’m smiling wide right now. 🫠
One thing to give thanks for this Thursday. She is not our president.
Nor was she ever!
Nor will she ever
🙌🏻
They do know what they are doing.
If only Crooks had taken Trump out in Butler that video would not have been needed. That is why the Dems have been so upset. They promised the PTB the one world gov was theirs come 2030 and that dam new yorker is screwing it up again and this will be twice they will not get their bonuses.
Yep. It's probably the only promise that they ever intended to keep.
I had to look twice when Brennan pointed out his CIA colleagues
If you told me all six of those politicians were ex I C, I would not doubt you. Brennan makes me ill.
Poking at a live hornet's nest with a stick. They must understand what it is that they're provoking - it's "not a joke" as the Cabbage-in-Chief used to say.
Whatever the quality of Trump's or Vances tweets, this is not a "both sides," issue. This is Brennan and his CIA cronies carrying out an operation on the US that began with a psyop on the American Military. If it is not quite seditious, it is serious treachery, no matter one's view of the president. Such treachery has to be met with all the legal force that is appropriate, and maximal, for the matter at hand. The military are once again being used as political pawns by the democrats (Marxicrats). They did so first in the shutdown and, now, in this program of near sedition. It has to be put down. If it is not, then it will become a "both sides" issue, for in the future, both sides will foment programs like this to undermine the chief executive whom they disfavor. It will be chaos. Brennan and his people have crossed the Rubicon and dragged all of us with them, and it is infuriating.
100%.
And their enforcement of trans ideology, DEI and CRT on the military.
🎯
I, personally, am so sick to death of the dangerous games that the Dems played from the day that Trump came down that escalator in 2015....on continuous coup attempt after another....failure to accept an election...and here we are again....doing it over....the balls of them to talk about Trump contesting the 2020 election....they didn't accept Nixon's and they don't accept Trumps. Sick to death of it.
And that's me and I am not the direct target. I can imagine how sick to death Trump is of it. And you cannot reason with these people. They are insane....literally and figuratively.
That said, Trump needs someone to guard his phone so that he cannot post uncleared comments on Truth Social. It gives a bad look.
you are right...Trump and his wife came down the stairs and announced his running for President. Immediately, the other side went to work with "illegal" war of putting Trump penury, prison, and later attempted assassination .
It’s important to remember that while the Democrats are the current puppets, the puppeteers remain the Security State-Wall Street alliance. They were in charge for both Bush and Obama. They made sure Bernie didn’t win, but they failed twice to prevent Trump.
They cannot abide a disruptive force. That’s what Trump is. Political party got nothing to do with it.
The uniparty at work: lawyers guns money
You are too kind to the Dems who are willing partners. They are all intertwined as one incestuous group.
Apologies, no kindness intended. I’ve long lost any faith in any of those fuckers. It’s just that too many of us lapse back into the tribal warfare, when the puppeteers continue to get us to hate each other rather than them.
True, but we know were they reside right now at this moment.
My brother died of methamphetamine. To me blowing those so-called fishing boats to smithereens is justified. Just seems like in my view stolen elections have consequences and 2020 was a stolen election.
He’s the President. I want to hear from him. Others can ask him if he thinks this or that would be better, but I don’t want to hear from a staffer. Plus I am used to his speech and comments, and get it when he simply making his authority clear.
I don't want to hear from a staffer either. All I am saying is that he often needs a filter...to not turn off people who did vote for him but may not continue to support...I often write responses which I then modify or delete...for people who will misinterpret.
I read the comments on the NYPost and that should scare the begeesus out of anyone...and that paper actually employs journalists.
Bad look is an understatement.
Remember what they told Nixon in 19 60. Sorry dick they stole it fair and square and Nixon accepted that I feel like Nixon was railroaded especially after the 1972 election and then being kicked out but that can happen when both the house in the Senate although they didn't have a 2/3 majority in the Senate to impeach by party they did have the two-thirds majority he had no options but to resign it's very sad to me. And that more than anything is why the United States lost Vietnam after we at the Nixon had won it in 73
That was a coup.
Wrong take here, Matt. The Slotkin vid is flat-out an encouragement to mutiny, made worse by the assurance that "we will have your back" if you do so. Without a single example of an "illegal order" that has been given. And all of it done by a former CIA officer, who knows a thing or two about fomenting discord within society. Can't think of another time something like this has ever happened in domestic politics. Can you?
And today, for some reason I received a text from Sen Kelly saying "The Department of Defense [sic] is coming after me because they don't like what I have ti say. Let's call it what it is: Political persecution." The text then asks for a $10 donation while assuring me that "We will not give up the ship." The next phase of "the insurrection."
Sure, Trump's response was harsh but hardly unwarranted given the magnitude of the transgression by the Seditious Six. You don't seem to understand the seriousness of what they did.
Sorry, "both sides-sim" does not apply here.
I absolutely understand the seriousness of what they did, which is why it was imperative for Trump to put effort into deciding how to deal with it and not just pop off with threats about hanging… his huge weakness is he doesn’t see the necessity of playing outside his core audience at key moments like this. He’s also not listening to what Kelly is saying. The Democrats are telling officers to ask their commanders if they’re confused about orders, which suggests to me they’ve been quietly recruiting commanders, which is what people do in coups. So similarly, every time Trump asks a high officer to color outside the lines with the boat bombing program or Posse Comitatus violations, he’s probably undermining his own power base. I just don’t think he’s being smart.
I'm a retired USN chief and with Pacificus on this one. Trump responded appropriately, imo, to the threat of a coup. He hasn't colored outside the lines of Posse Comitatus or with the drug boat bombing program. There have been no threats to civilians by NG troops. I felt my gut twist when I watched the junta video.
How could you possibly interpret a video reminding the military of their duty to refuse unlawful orders as a coup threat? Isn’t that the most basic principle that is drilled into them from boot camp? What does that have to do with a coup?
Imagine you're walking on a 4" wide wobbly plank suspended a thousand feet over a canyon. Is the person who shouts from safety, "Whatever you do, don't look down!" acting in your interest?
Yeah. These bozos won’t be going to jail for soldiers who disobey orders.
Primarily because all service members already know this, so there was no reason for them to be reminded. Also because they had no examples of "illegal orders" to offer.
What they're really saying is that when Dems retake power, they will move against those who performed actions of which they disapprove. We already saw that with the insane prosecutions/persecutions of J6ers.
No one in the service needs to be lectured about the duty to disobey an illegal order. So, its inarguable that this was not a public service reminder by Kelly et al. This was a very clear threat pointed at all who serve. The reference to Nuremberg was the standard TDS Hitler ploy and a warning to those who serve that years later, when Dems are in power, they could be prosecuted. If we don't see the DOJ prosecuting Kelly et al for this attempt to destable the armed forces we will know how deep the rot really goes.
And we already know what Dems will do, based on their persecution of J6ers.
#1 Military members don't need to be reminded that they are to refuse illegal orders. #2 The coup leaders slammed servicemembers by stating "Americans trust their military, but that trust is at risk." #3 "THIS ADMINISTRATION IS PITTING OUR UNIFOMRED MILITARY....AGAINST AMERICAN CITIZENS." Not only are these scum trying to lead a coup, they are also trying to convince US citizens that their military is a danger to them. It was reported elsewhere that one of these lowlifes mentioned the elimination of the drug boats as illegal. Here's some news for you on leadership: it's not the job of the servicemember to question every order coming from the leadership. Just like with Obama's drone assassinations with collateral damage and Bush's Iraq fiasco, it's up to the 6 lowlifes and their colleagues in Congress to investigate what they perceive as Illegal orders. Here is an example of an officer with honor (missing from the 6) stopping an illegal action. https://www.warhistoryonline.com/featured/helicopter-pilot-stopped-my-lai-massacre.html
Yes, drilled in since boot camp. So, why do YOU think these worthies felt the need to make the video?
Answer== the actual sedition ongoing in Agencies will be in the streets soon (midterms, IMO). It’s a color revolution. They are freezing the military *ahead* of what would be appropriate deployment to riot zones.
I hope my prediction is wrong, but haven't there been admissions from serious sources that a color revolution is being cooked up now? Corrections welcome.
Because it isn’t hard to imagine Trump giving illegal orders. In his first term he mused about shooting protestors. He has zero respect for laws and constitution. The entire year has been an endless stream of unconstitutional executive orders and illegal actions. Just this week Comeys case was dropped because Halligan was appointed illegally. That’s one example of dozens
Uh, since when is it the military's duty to control POTUS? That is so inappropriate and manipulative it makes my head spin. A politicized military is a very dangerous road to follow.
TDS has destroyed you with ahistorical emotions and completely dishonest appeals to partisan games. Your hero Obama and Biden did the same and more not even in our hemisphere claiming terrorist.
Read the following article and then explain to me why the George Soros funded National Lawyers Guild (the legal arm of Antifa) published a page urging military members to refuse illegal orders and why they would also partner with Win Without War (a group backed by Soros's Open Society) to put up a billboard in North Carolina asking military members "Did you go airborne just to pull security for ICE?" It sure looks to me like they're trying to foment chaos and dissent among the ranks of our military. It sure looks to me like they're getting very desperate. When organizations like these get desperate, you better watch out. I fear "there's a bad moon on the rise".
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2025/11/26/oh-of-course-thats-whos-funding-the-latest-dem-attacks-on-trump-n2667077
They get desperate because they are losing. They wish to inflict upon people things that the people want no part of, using fear and threat. That's not how we roll in this country and I do have faith in those young people who serve. They didn't get brainwashing degrees at Princeton. These guys aren't the ANTIFA sort. What we don't need is misguided idiots attacking them as they serve.
refuse an unlawful order from commander & chief IS NOT EVER SPOKEN IN ANY FASHION inside any branch
Oh come now, Matt. You can do better than this. There are no officers confused about orders. They may disagree with them or not like them, but believe me they fully understand all orders. If the Democrats are indeed recruiting commanders for a coup, then this is way worse than what this video suggests. And it would be time to demonstrate to all active duty personnel that this kind of crap will not be tolerated. If it takes the court-martial of a sitting senator and retired navy captain to do it, then so be it.
Also, Trump is not undermining his power base. He is doing what 77 million voters elected him to do. His base finally found a Republican who has a pair and who is not afraid to use them.
Amen!!!
💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯
Do you think being reactionary is more dangerous display of behavior or being so determined to rule that you're willing to plot a hostile takeover is more dangerous? My thing that I keep asking myself is what is so damn urgent that Democrats can't wait four years to accomplish? If it is good then why don't they just tell us rather than blast us with propaganda and gaslight us? When you do good things people line up to follow you. I think you know that. So even if I don't like taking sides sometimes I am forced to take a position. This division is part of the long game plan for sure but is it best to look the other way and except that whoever has the most money or toys or audacity prevails? Some of us have kids. I also don't mind blowing up drug boats. I'm sure that won't set well but for once someone is using military action that is directly benefiting the people who live on this dirt and not something somewhere for the benefit of whoever and how much $$ they can skim off of the top. I'd rather blow up those boats then fill up our prisons and morgues like we have been doing for decades. That doesn't seem moral. People who are so high all the time that they're living on the streets and other people just tripping over them or avoiding those areas. That doesn't seem moral to me either. Whole communities have to live around that and the dangers of knowing the only thing an addicted person cares about is the next fix and they'll do anything to get it. That doesn't seem moral for either side to have to live like that.
Agreed that Trump handled it badly. He should have said that it was a psyop to confuse the soldiers and interfere with the millitary command structure, which impacts millitary readiness. He should have said the FBI will look into it and launched an investigation, because of the seriousness of the matter.
All their emails, phone calls and text messages need to be scrutinized for intent.
There is a wealth of well-documented information in social psychology that documents how frame contamination and suspicion seeding works. They need to package it up and present it to America. Info about these persuasion and propaganda techniques are out there.
This was, essentially, the same kind of op the 51 intel officers in the Hunter Biden laptop letter used. The toed the line with "earmarks of" and "information operation", knowing that it would change the frame entirely for journalists, and confuse them into thinking that the letter writers claimed it was Russian disinformation.
This shit needs to be shut down, as it will likely happen again.
It cannot be shut down when 50% of the population has an IV drip of liberal consciousness influencing their minds 24/7.
Given that Kelly’s fundraising off it, that puts him in Jasmine Crockett land.
This is all nonsense. More
Theater. A political gimmick and the expected furious response. The people yelling Sedition! about this sound like those yelling it about every other thing Trump’s done for 10 years.
It's theater in that it's transparent to intelligent people versed in manipulation. It's deadly serious in that it's aimed at 18 yr olds who are barely literate. I try really hard to enjoy the comedy when I can, but I find these spies and politicians without redeeming value.
And that's the point, Ann. This is deliberately targeted to young military, some barely out of their teens who have now been warned that their lives could be ruined if they obey an order that turns out to have been illegal. Once you destroy the authority of a commanding officer, you have destroyed the force of your military. If an order proves to have been illegal, it is the commanding officer, not the service personnel who should be held accountable.
Certainly it is the point.
And to sharpen the horns of the dilemma, there is the absolute certainty that to disobey a legal order will land that young soldier in very deep trouble indeed. So, we end up with some combination of rebellion, confusion, paralysis - a really great way to fight a war.
Yes, I had a fairly high level of respect for Kelly. Never has my estimation of a politician cratered so fast. He's probably running for President. Trump should play this right so as not to imbue him with too much energy.
Oh lordy telling soldiers to ask their commanders if they should obey. Sick and evil. No one's going to join the military. Putin is laughing.
Do they carry USCODE TEXTS OR EVEN THE CONSTITUTION WITH THEM to battle? What if there’s uncertainty about the command and the commander is not able to stop and talk? I know the JAG instructs them daily, but if it’s something the soldier wants to get out of, he will remember the SIX, and decide it could be illegal and that’s my excuse! Many of these men are under 25. Their brains are not mature yet. They’ll ask their buds and follow them in real life.
...and that's the Kelly and Crew destabilization strategy. They have planted the seeds of doubt and fear in our military. A sure way to destabilize, to create the chaos for a coup.
As a retired USN Master Chief, I saw the video as targeting the lower enlisted. Matt makes a great point that it is a bat-signal being sent out to the command structure. Scary shit…
Great screen name!
One of the best driving songs ever.
Yeah but he should hang them.
I think DJT is walking a fine line - most people do not support the democrats agenda (this is evidenced by their ever increasing need to cheat). In addressing their also increasing desperation, he needs to play to his base first - the whole "dance with the one who brung ya".
With that comment I feel even worse. You know the seriousness of the written word and you referencing the word “coup” is scary. I also noticed that Navy Admiral Holsey of the Southern Command just resigned suddenly
Say it ain’t so
Spot on!!!! Great article, Matt.
I hope Matt doesn't go too far with the Two Sides thing. Some things are just too wrong to equivocate. There is no parallel between seditiously inciting demoralization and destabilization in our armed forces and a president's foolhardy response. Do I wishTrump were more circumspect in his reaction to these provocations? Of course. and hopefully, he can be counseled in this. But meanwhile, let's keep our eye on what is now a desperate and dangerous Dem ball! Just like Trump, they may believe words are just that, words, and that these don't have real world consequences. But they do. This threat to our immature service men and women may be enough to demoralize and destabilize the chain of command, and ultimately to threaten the military power we depend on to protect us.
I don’t remember the first message to be a threat. He named the crime and it’s punishment, but it wasn’t a sentence, but a reminder. The Six may have had something to say to the Commander in Chief that they are aware of, but they were out of line to blast it over the airwaves so we can all now wonder if a coup is imminent. Also, Posse Commitas is missing an element to be named that in the use of the NG we have seen so far. Sorry, I forget the distinction.
It took the Dems' video to finally get you to acknowledge what is going on in Venezuela as well as the mean-spirited and provocative deployments of the National Guard to our cities... but then the only thing you have to say about these topics is that acknowledging them is going to turn you into Uncle Asshole at your Thanksgiving this year? I think you need to stop vibing off of Walter, buddy.
It's the exact opposite- he needs to learn a thing or two from Walter. Seditious Conspiracy is not a crime that should be handled delicately. If we are lucky, the loud internet response has already been balanced with a quiet indictment. They need to go down- full stop.
Seditious conspiracy for…stating simple facts? Y’all really are fascist. It said illegal orders. Illegal! Do you think soldiers SHOULD follow illegal orders?
YOU might be that simple-minded that you don't see the message that came with the words, but the rest of us are not. Or maybe it's that you have no idea that the soldiers have already sworn an oath to the Constitution. Or maybe you are so triggered by your leftist media that you can't hear straight. There were NO "FACTS" even presented in that video- it was offering advice and suggesting non-compliance as a possibility. Do you even understand what we are talking about here? I seems not.
No I don’t understand because you are insinuating intentions in the video that simply don’t exist
WHAT illegal orders has Trump given? It seems they would have told that. He just insinuated .. If there have been no illegal orders, what was the point of making that video?
You missed the point, Cade Beck. Kelly et al sent a threat to the young, barely out of their teens, military that they could be hanged for obeying an illegal order. They already know that. So, why did Kelly et al lecture them?? And why now??
Well, Matt has certainly learned to complain about the youth of today like a common peepaw, so something has rubbed off on him.
What's rubbed off on him is middle age and children.
Maybe it's time for you to grow up?
National Guard so MEAN! Puh-leeze. Perhaps if protesters stopped attacking ICE, this wouldn't be necessary.
The only attack I saw was a loser whipping his Subway footlong at a guy in a flak vest.
Protesters were heaving large blocks of concrete off overpasses in LA onto ICE vehicles. Some goofball in TX actually shot into an ICE facility, killing an immigrant.
And now, 2 National Guardsmen critically injiured by a shooter in DC.
Yeah, I know. I just had to find a reason to make fun of the dumbass who thought throwing a sandwich would help. Serious lack of self-control. "If I throw this, I'll be chased, caught--probably tackled on asphalt--maybe smacked around a little bit, and definitely on my way to the pokey. GREAT IDEA!"
Come now, you are much smarter than that..
I actually would have preferred to reference ICE than except that Matt only mentioned the NG. (Hey, you like them so much? Petition your own city council to invite them to your town... I dare you.)
As for ICE: the Luigis can't come for them fast enough. (Again, I never cease to be amazed how the party of small government/liberty/don't tread on me/FEMA death camps has turned on a dime when a shiny jackboot is offered to them to lick.)
These are illegals, moron! And you want murderers/Luigis killing American ICE officers? You're a PIG and should be banned from this platform. Matt, are you watching?
You really think of the Natl Guard as jackboots? You are very tender.
Outside of Massie and Paul Sr and Jr and few others please remind me when they were the party of small government/ liberty etc. ? I really don't recall that. Also please clarify for me what "As for ICE: the Luigis can't come for them fast enough," means. Thank you.
Now you see? This is how you people think. You want to hurt people just doing their jobs. What if people started calling for the NG to Luigis people like you?
Apparently the Luigi call has been answered: 2 NG's just shot and critically wounded in DC. Thanks, Salusa!
"Just for doing their jobs". Now, where do you think I am going to go with that, hmmm?
"Mean-spirited, provocative deployments of the National Guard to our cities"? Wow! Since when is protecting Americans from rampant crime in their neighborhoods mean-spirited? Did your Democrat feewings get hurt? Don't want the peons to see that Republicans really are better at law and order which is beneficial to their actual lives? You need to recalibrate your brain to what's real, buddy.
Then why don’t you get your mayor on the horn and invite them to your fucking city? Because as far as I can tell, no one else has been requesting them in theirs.
That would be entirely unnecessary since I live in a well-ordered Red City without rampant crime and with a mayor and police chief who care about the residents here and don't want them tortured by murderous gangs and thugs or their neighborhoods burned to the ground! BTW I live in the Free State of Florida. Need I say more?
Oh Snape, I live in Memphis and believe me, most of the citizens are delighted with the National Guard being here to help bring law and order back to the city. Democrats don’t care about law and order, let the criminals run free to rape and kill again. No bail policies, lenient judges, letting convicted murderers go free. You are just another feelings-oriented Democrat idiot who doesn’t understand what society actually wants, and that is law and order and the safety of taxpayers. Not the safety of the felons.
Good! Invite them to stay permanently.
Do Not Engage with the salsa troll. He/her/they/thems feelings are hurt🤣🤣🤣
Good grief. I'm sorry but I just can't with this.
Didn't he send the NG to protect the ICE agents?
I agree with you Matt, but I don’t think it’ll matter what Trump says or does. This won’t stop with him. It’ll just transfer to the next target. You understand a lot about governmental politics and the flow of information but you seem to be conspicuously ignorant about the politics of masculinity and violence. And that’s ok.
The officers tha are going to cave won’t matter. The fighting (enlisted) men of the US military (whom the officers need to carry out their orders) are predominantly conservative. Trust me, there’s scant loyalty in the grunt and other combat units for leftist officers or politics.
Until someone can identify one or a group of orders that are actually illegal (which is complicated by the 7/24 SCOTUS ruling on presidential immunity) then this is definitely a violation of USC 2387, and is punishable by death if convicted. He’s the same boorish asshole he always was and he’s not wrong.
They’ve tried to kill him twice, they've cuffed him on national tv, tried to jail him, bankrupt him and they’re still slandering and libeling him with impunity. And I include Barack Obama in that “they”.
He’s probably scared under all that bluster and hyperbole and he saw in his first term the consequence of not being blunt and laying down the law. You’re still a little bit too left- and this is why you have trouble seeing this perspective.
We are going exactly where you and Walter think we’re going. If that is indeed the case, and I believe it is, words will cease to matter, and it’ll happen in a blink. Like you, I’ve watched this type of thing unfold in countries overseas, or rather the consequence of this type of prolonged rhetoric. Never thought I’d see it here. I hope you have a route to a less populated locale mapped out.
Unlike Pacificus, I don’t believe your take is wrong. I just don’t think it’s significant. This is treason. Sides have been chosen already. Words really don’t mean that much now, and won’t mean jack shit once the first high ranking officer disobeys publicly.
Posse Comitatus is a truly disgusting law, one of the greatest blunders in American history and one which instantly led to generations of Jim Crow laws and democrat party tyranny that lasted until the 1990s. It would be difficult to find a worse law in the United States.
Eisenhower was absolutely prepared to ignore any court which raised that rancid excuse for a law while he was suppressing Democrats in the 1950s at the point of bayonets. And he was 10000000% correct.
“…which suggests to me…” followed by something as serious as the hint that a coup is in the works is absolutely the most irresponsible bit of journalism I’ ve ever seen. Congratulations, you’ve surpassed Russiagate in the field of crap reporting.
It’s commenting.
Biden fired thousands of active duty personnel for refusing to take the vax. Don’t recall any Democratic voices supporting those who were fired for not following an unlawful order.
This x1000
That’s a really great point.
Matt: Thanks for your reply. Yes, Trump is being impolitic in calling for executions for treason, but being impolitic is not an act of insurrection. The video I saw most definitely was--direct encouragement for service members to "disobey illegal orders." Asking commanders seemed optional to me. And who are "the commanders" to ask? Nothing Trump is doing--making unilateral strikes against designated enemies (Obama), sending the National Guard into cities (Ike and JFK sent in troops to enforce civil rights, Hochul herself send the Guard into the subway), to name two possible objections, is without recent precedent.
Of course Trump's reaction seems over the top (do you really expect anything else?), but the real historical frame is this: "normal" American politics is over, we are in a de facto Cold Civil War.. who knows better than you how the intel agencies framed Trump as a Russian asset? This is just the next chapter in the post-Constitutional Republic era we are living in. First thing we have to do is get very clear about that. It will, I think, change how we analyze all of this. If there is an element of "bothsidesism" here, it is that one side is trying to overthrow the elected president, and the other side is attempting to prevent it, albeit in an often ham-handed and ineffective way. To me, that is the lede.
As always, my immense respect for you and what you do.
A cold civil war. What a perfect description.
Very well said. The reasonable truth of the situation. Thanks.
Do you think soldiers SHOULD follow illegal orders?
Should soldiers follow illegal orders? Obviously not. But neither you nor co-conspirator and co-conspirator SLotkin have provided an example of one that Trump has given.
I don't recall the Dems being upset when Obama was lighting up an American citizen Anwar Al Alaki and his teenage son with a Hellfire missile--now there was "an egregious abuse of power."
Or when they were shooting peaceful protesters in the face on J6..Nor when they held American citizens in jails for years for walking through the Capitol.
Yes. The Dems/Left have this long list of outrages against our rights and liberties, yet they still have the audacity to pretend as if the real threat to all that is good, is Trump.
But I guess that is the strategy--scream to the rooftops about the very thing that you are guilty of. Very cynical, but very clever, too.
I was upset about Anwar awlaki! That was an illegal order for sure! A disgusting assassination of a citizen. I’m not blinded by partisanship pal
Yes, what Obama did was illegal... Trump has not done anything comparable, and if does, I will call him out on it.
Glad that we agree.
Matt just said, blowing up boats. Which yes, is illegal. WTF
That not anyone's side in the argument. Those who enlist in the military are educated and trained in what constitutes a legal order versus an illegal order; everybody in that video is aware of that. However, their video gives the impression that enlisted troops are mindless bumpkins who don't know any better.
Would it really surprise you to know that quite a number of 18 yr old Americans are mindless bumpkins?
That is why they are in the military, trying to make them mindful, productive citizens. LOL
Nice try,
They aren’t trying to overthrow the president! They are attempting to stop the most egregious abuses of power. And if you frame things in terms of “civil war” that just gives you an excuse to justify throwing away the constitution and resorting to violence. Isn’t that what war is?
The people "throwing away the Constitution" here are the seditious conspirators undermining the constitutionally-based chain of command... As to "violence"--last time I checked, it was conservative icon Charlie Kirk who was murdered for just wanting to have a conversation. Can you provide examples of someone on the Left that has been murdered (in this century) for his or her beliefs? The "violence" is coming from the Left.
Violence only on the left? Judges who have gone against Trumps desire have been threatened or attacked. Blow to Pelosi’s husband. My brown friend. who is a citizen, was tossed into a U-Haul dragged away while his kids were screaming. Minnesota congress couple killed in their home. Kelly’s wife, Gabbard. Just to name a few off the top of my head. The selective victimhood is amazing. And Trump is always being “not smart” about his responses so just add this one to the heap.
Dems don’t give up the ship which is not in peril, but amazingly The Epstein Files are no longer Dem job one. Hmmmm.
It does make one wonder if this was a calculated distraction.
Yeah.....there might be problems in the Epstein Files.
Exactly. Magically removed from the front page. How DID that happen?
I got two of those texts from Mark Kelly today as well and I wondered why he is asking for $$ donations… for what- his legal defense for his seditious comments?!? Sorry Bro… non from me🇺🇸
A few hours later, I got a request for $$ from his wife, Gabby🙃
Send him a confederate 10 dollar note
No. Send it to me. They are worth something now.
Made me {{{Horse Laugh}}}
They damned themselves with "we will have your back." These people are disgusting. Manipulating naive kids to do their dirty work.
Kelly is, indeed, investigated by the Pentagon since he's a retired Navy captain. The message to "disobey illegal orders" carries a different weight inside the military. And the military doesn't need any advice, they know it better. Wasn't Kelly supposed to know it and expect the investigation? It looks like it was all pre-planned.
I find it adorable how journalists view tweets and memes. The limitation on the number of characters doesn't allow for any complexity, so tweets come at the maximum strength being the most exaggerated and inflammatory. But nobody should take them literarily. I don't know who even reads tweets outside of the media and politicians. I certainly don't.
You are insane. Refusing illegal orders is a basic principle of our military. That’s the entire purpose of the JAGs is to determine if orders are legal. Where is the encouragement to mutiny? I’m mystified. How could you possibly interpret it that way? There have been illegal orders. The boat bombings are almost certainly illegal. Why do you think the original commander resigned?
False. Being unable to provide an example of "an illegal order" by Trump means that this was an open-ended incitement to mutiny--don't be "mystified," I just cleared it up for you. "The boast bombings are almost certainly illegal." "Almost certainly," I rest my case. That fact that some commanders resigned over the boat bombings is not an indication of anything other than that is their opinion. When some higher judicial authority reaches that conclusion, let me know. Until then, what Trump is doing is well within precedent. Wink wink calls for mutiny against the Commander in Chief are a despicable blow to our Constitutional order, far more serious than anything that occurred in Jan 6.
"Almost certainly, you are a fool." See how that works?
I really do l love your come-backs!
So, we’re supposed to assume those aren’t drugs and that’s not a rum runner with 3 250hp Evinrudes strapped to it? There was a line decades ago where management asked Dirty Harry why he shot the perp and he said something to effect that when a guy is chasing a woman with a hardon and butcher knife “he’s probably not the Welcome Wagon”. That’s my logic here: they’re out to kill another 100 Americans. Hasta la Vista!!
Tell it to the judge.
We've been sending our guys to fight wars with one hand tied behind their backs since Korea. You can hear vets of all ages saying, “They gave us a chance to die but never a chance to win.”
Deliberate screwed up policies by the Obama and Biden administrations that elevated non warfighting issues and personnel and failures not only in funding but decision making - like the pullout in Afghanistan - led to a hollowing out of our military.
I said “deliberate” because I think it was a deliberate effort to weaken the US's ability to project power; which is fundamental to a philosophy that is focused on an end to nationalism and the creation of a “new world order”.
The blossoming of military enlistments and a new focus on “Making America Great Again'“ necessitates some kind of new approach to weakening the force and this seditious action by ostensibly reliable people is one of them.
If there is a cold civil war forming it is between well funded forces who, on one side, want an end to the experiment called America and those who would preserve it.
To me, there is no doubt that the weakening of the US military, chiefly through morale-sapping DEI initiatives, is deliberate. This nation is being brought down from within by the infiltration of our major institutions--including our military-- by people who want to see the US collapse. This trend must be reversed.
"The text then asks for a $10 donation"
And as with everything the Democrats do ostensibly based on principle, it's ultimately reduced to a fundraising pitch.
I wasn’t unable to provide an example- I did and you just dismissed it. I’m guessing you would do that with any other example I provide. Why do the courts keep ruling against all the national guard deployments? Or do you no care when courts say something is illegal? All that matters is your own deranged opinion
You did not provide an example of an illegal order.. just an opinion as to one that might be illegal. Fail. And you have no other even possible example to offer. Double fail. But hey, don't take my word for it--co-conspirator Elissa Slotkin can't come up with one either, and no, referencing the scenario in A Few Good Men does not count.
District Courts are ruling against Trump, and they are frequently being overruled on appeal. National Guard deployments to defend citizens are not out of the ordinary, Hochul herself sent them into the NYC subway. Triple fail.
Your idea of making an argument is to hurl insults. Quadruple fail.
And how many court orders has the Trump administration defied? None. Playing by the rules no matter how unreasonable the ruling. Worst fascist ever.
Yeah, cheers to that. If Trump is a "fascist," he is a lousy one.. maybe he needs to go to Fascist School and work on nis technique (?)
Martha's Vineyards called them to remove the illegals from their community. I didn't hear dems screaming about that..
The dems are slow walking us into a civil war. They started with sanctuary cities and now planting mutiny in the military.
We’re sitting on the slippery slope here. Poking and prodding by a group of miscreants who’d like nothing better than to attempt for the 4th, 5th or 6th time to imprison the sitting President. Let’s not be coy, there were no ILLEGAL ORDERS, save for the ones inside their seditious souls.
If we allow this to go on unpunished, it will get worse. When the mob robbing its 4th Walgreens realizes there’s no downside, suddenly your town is a pharmacy desert. Prison for the six of them, at least as bad as the Jan. 6th charade - solitary. That way Mark Kelly won’t be able to fund raise quite as much. This has gone on too long already, file the charges and bring them to justice - or the next challenge will be one of physical force. I’m sick of being threatened by the leftist soy boys and their twat co-conspirators.
No more immigrants, paper ballots, ban sanctuary anything, we didn’t agree to funding their leftist Colvard-Piven schemes. Clean out Minneapolis, Portland, Chicago - now.
Certainly it is the point.
And to sharpen the horns of the dilemma, there is the absolute certainty that to disobey a legal order will land that young soldier in very deep trouble indeed. So, we end up with some combination of rebellion, confusion, paralysis - not a real great way to send young men to fight a war.
How does it feel to have Trump inside you? I'm not joking but is this a kind of bdsm thing? I'm absolutely dead serious. For Pacifus btw
Your comment makes no sense to me at all. And I'm "absolutely dead serious." We're talking insurrection here, not BDSM. That must be your thing.
“I have plans to return from Thanksgiving guns-ablazing for a long Racket project that seems guaranteed to make me one of the most hated people in media, if not the most hated.”
Can’t wait… I love drama!
Matt and Walter will have a podcast in the format of the old Crossfire tv debate show. Listeners will be encouraged to bet on which will be the first to use the line “Jane you ignorant slut”.
their podcast and live streams are extremely underrated especially the book club
Wasn't that Point/CounterPoint?
Yes it was!
Ho, ho, ho.
re becoming one of the most hated people in media, would that work as a "go fund me"?
I look forward to Matt going after some topic guns-ablazing, so I hope he writes about a topic where he allows himself to do that, even if Walter sees things differently. I'd love to see Matt get his edge back.
It's nice to read the transcripts whenever I miss a live show because you can just skip over most of the Walter parts. He's almost always saying the same thing and it's almost always nothing. Matt should look at those transcripts once in a while though because they make it so blatant how much airtime Walter eats up with absolute blather and hogwash, and how seldom Matt gets to finish a sentence without being interrupted or talked over.
I love Matt, but you're missing the best part of you're skipping Walt, especially last Friday's show. And it's not like Matt disagrees with Walt. That's obvious.
I'm not missing anything, that's why it's nice to have it in text. I can look at it and see whether he's saying something or just bloviating through one of his standard time-filling routines, and it's often the latter. "I had a dinner party with a famous person", "the world must hear this obviously-wrong fanfiction about a topic or person I just learned about based on a clip I misunderstood", "I went to Oxford", "I'm from Montana/Minnesota/DC/Vegas/anywhere and as a true man of the people...", "My Roma blood / insightful writer's brain / whatever is giving me a great insight that will be proven wrong immediately", etc.--These always go on and on and on it's and it's all noise with no signal. Scrolling past 300 lines of it is much nicer than having to sit and hear it again for 20 minutes or else fiddle with the timebar and hope to get past it without missing the sentence or two that Matt will manage to get out that hour.
I like the transcripts, too, but it's your loss. Walt is a very wise man with a wealth of knowledge. Matt doesn't keep him around for nothin'.
Like most partisans when you say Kirn is “wise” you mean his perspectives align with yours. Correct? Kirn is entertaining. Wise? No. Not even approaching wisdom. If he were worthy of that descriptor he would evince a little interest in what Matt has to say. You my friend are not a careful listener nor a reliable observer. What Kirn does is a laughable pretence of listening. To whit: every once in awhile he’ll repeat the last two words of a Matt assertion. The same behaviour a kid sitting at the back of a classroom might attempt when called upon to answer a question.
So Omnist and John Patrick Daly just said they don't like Walt in a very nasty way without referencing any point of disagreement of which there must be many so why didn't you mention one or two to refute my assertion that he is wise? No, you insulted me as a partisan (yes, I have a viewpoint as do you) who only wants to be agreed with. On the contrary. I like the truth, to hear it, read it. I find Walt to be very truthful and anyone who can rightly handle the truth in my book is wise. You two are just nasty and unkind with your many empty words when you could have just said you're a liberal and don't agree with Walt and are closed to hearing what he has to say. Then you wouldn't have had to be nasty and so superior.
Hilarious. And right on the money. If Kirn would just shut his battery-operated gob once in a blue moon and/or fake a little interest in what Matt has to offer then you might have an actual conversation/examination of an issue or event. It never happens.
I have to say Walt surprised me on that show. Got feisty.
Walter will always straighten Matt out when he goes squish on some topic.
Matt doesn't need "straightened out." What an infantilizing thing to say about him.
Care to elaborate on why you would make such an astonishing suckholing to Walter Kirn comment?
I hope he hires former special services private military security company.
Stadium wave.
I, for one, embrace the opportunity to hate you.
"Make you" the most hated man in media? You're being too modest by putting it into future tense Matt. Just remember- we love you and that is why we reserve the right criticize you endlessly. Best wishes for the Holidays!
He's going to start a series on why Palestinian babies deserved to have their arms and legs melted off isn't he
ok, so can a serviceman ordered to take an experimental genetic therapy refuse?
No, and many were court martialed for it. Some survived, others still fighting, others completely ruined.
Clearly you can refuse and then be discharged .
you are quite right! That ‘jab’ should never have been required.
… Or Court martialed, as you should be
Right but Nuremberg prohibits coerced experimental medical treatment. Those shots were nothing but.
you are quite right! That ‘jab’ should never have been required.
Dishonorably???
I think you need a new balance scale, Matt. Because that wasn't both sides. First, there is NO issue if that video wasn't produced. Second, the Left calling Trump Hitler for years then escalating to threats of Nuremberg-style trials for military personnel for crimes they can't specify yet. Sounds like a replay of the Trump lawfare schemes. "Vote for me and I'll get Trump for uh, uh, uh SOMETHING" said Alvin Bragg and Tish James. Third, you conveniently left out Mark Kelly on MSNOW where he doubled down on the threat, saying the military needs to be aware that Presidents only serve limited terms. Hint, hint, hint.
Sorry, it's not both sides when one side starts a fight, the other side fights back but harder, then the first side whines and cries on every sympathetic media outlet it can find.
Don't you hate it when the bloodied victim isn't a good sport about it?
Well, the usual Republican response is to turn over their lunch money to the bully. Trump and Vance throwing fists is out of character for the GOP, which might explain Matt's confusion.
Matt didn't seem confused. He seemed questioning.
One way or the other, with all due respect to Matt, he didn't get it right. The video and aftermath is not bothsideism.
So true and well said!
I agree that both sides are ridiculous in their own ways. However, I don't remember during the 4 miserable years of Biden, ranting and raving lunatics on the Right spending all their waking moments trying to dethrone him. It's so tiresome and annoying. It's really hard not to hate the Left these days.|
Or dressing up in mascot costumes and face masks shrieking about fascism. The left apparently failed to notice thousands of people summarily fired by Biden’s vaccine mandates, which sounds fascist to me. Especially since the CDC, FDA, Congress etc. were exempt. No viruses there I guess.
Yup
This is exactly right. To the point that I almost wish it was a both sides thing.
Why do so many people think Democrats are "the left"?
I know why they want you to think that but why does it ever work? They're as far from the left as you can get on every actual political issue. Anytime someone with any centrist--not even left, just less extremely authoritarian right--positions turns up, the entire DNC rallies around like their hair is on fire to squash them from existence.
How can you make any sense of the world or anything if you think the extreme right extreme authoritarian Democrat party is "The Left"? Really.
Maybe semantics. They call themselves Left but clearly have abandoned values traditionally espoused by it in the past.
Right, I get why they call themselves that but I think people should not be so willing to play along with using that label when it’s obviously not what they are.
And considering his declining mental faculties it would have been legitimately justified. Ironic.
And I usually adore irony.
Luv ya Matt.
However....uh oh, here it comes......First off JD was a Marine, so he's not just a politician tweeting crap out of hand. He knows how serious the Military Code of Justice is. So should all the others that are former military. And....if those former military members FOLLOWED the two 'former' intelligence peeps....well, duh.
And Trump gonna Trump. He is not going to change and suddenly become someone he is not. We have heard now a thousand times that his 'reckless behavior' is going to lead to war.....war with North Korea, war with Iran, war with Russia, war with China....and on and on and on......and each time we are 'literally on the brink,' we find out he had some backroom words already spoken to the proper people and poof, no war. If anything, he has STABILIZED things much more than any recent president. And yet, people cannot get over his bluster. He just blabs.....and yes, sometimes he blabs stupidly, but look at his ACTIONS. He also tells a lot of jokes and I'm betting that doesn't always translate to written word....in other words, sarcasm.
Everyone is so Henny Penny these days......I wish everyone would just relax. Here, in real America, we have other issues to deal with. I'm tired of paying property tax. I have an idiot client today who DOESN'T want me to splint her dog's leg again even though it's not completely healed. I have a lame horse at home that I am trying hard to fix. The plumbing in my horse trailer leaks like a sieve and I gotta figure out a way to put a topline on my main eventing horse. So.....
Anyway, a lot of us old farts(me) love Trump exactly BECAUSE he's not 'presidential' in any way because we got screwed over by the past presidents. We also think he's HILARIOUS and we know he's mostly joking....why can't anyone else take a damn joke anymore?
All you have to do is listen to him talk.....half of what he says is one liners....and suddenly, when he writes, he's not trying to be funny???
Geez.....I think not enough Xanax is currently circulating in this country. Perhaps we can put that in the water instead of flouride?
Everyone does have problems and we don't need people elected to serve the public making them worse with threats of hostile takeover, shutting down the government or fucking with our mental well being. I'm trying to sell a house in a a freaked out market. Even using a realtor people have tried to scam me three times. (I am finally in pending mode again and just waiting for the other shoe to drop on my head somehow.) My husband has early onset and I'm watching a brilliant star burn out and there's nothing I can do. I hide all the time how I feel so as not to frighten him or make him feel alarmed. I wake up early and get any sorrow or anger out of my system before anyone wakes up. Everyone has stuff they are dealing with and that's life. What we didn't sign up for is this bullshit being deliberately piled on us just because some want to rein over us and implement their brand of control. We do like that Trump isn't a cheap suit used car salesman but more like a person. Those used car salesmen for years sold our futures and whatever wasn't nailed down. He's not looking for a consensus or everyone to agree with him. My guess is whoever ran against the Democratic cabal would have been beaten down, called a Putin loving Nazi and lawfared to the max and maybe imprisoned. That kind of shit wears on a person and a country. At this point we are all reacting and I really don't want Xanax or therapy I just need for the instigators to stop punching us in the face.
Well said. I hope your house sells and praying for your husband. That's a lot on your plate, and you're right, we don't need this. When will they ever think about ANYONE else?!
Thanks for that. I wouldn't hold my breath or anything. We're just a means to an end for people who know nothing but self love and self congratulation. When we're completely looted they'll just eat each other.
Sorry to hear about your husband.
My late husband battled multiple myeloma and ESRD for 9 years before finally succumbing. Loved the phrase "watching a bright star burn out." Watching my big strong alpha male husband slowly waste away was a lot like that.
Prayers to you both.
It's hard to watch the progression. He is my sunshine. He was a brilliant software developer. When he got sick the boss called me asking "What's happening to our Mike?" His code was different before other signs showed. That helped us catch it early but the drugs can only slow things. He has moments though. He can still do stuff like help me out by upgrading my passcodes (to what he can't recall.) or taking apart the ceiling fan while I went to grab a gallon of milk from the grocery. Yes the power was still on and yes we enjoy shopping together now. At least he's still here. I'm sorry about your husband.
Love him as long as you can, Candi.
My husband had lesions in his brain, and started forgetting how to do stuff he’d been doing for decades — like backing the flat bed trailer into the yard without hitting the fence, so I can relate.
Happy Thanksgiving, Candi.
Happy Thanksgiving to you.
Candi I like your ability to completely articulate what the financial overlords are doing to us. My sincerest condolences for what you’re going through with your husband. I’m going through it with my wife.
Thank you, I'm afraid I'm not very graceful sometimes. I should probably have a better filter than just writing down what comes out. What stage is your wife in? Is she early enough to get the amyloid-beta protein test? It was new but that was some time ago. My husbands test was inconclusive by the time the insurance company approved his scans (it took like 6 months with me nagging. so you have to act quickly.) but if she can get treatments it can add months of stabilization. It's not a cure but it's something. My heart is with you. I absolutely understand.
It’s a horrible disease and there’s no stopping it. Happy holidays to you and yours Candi.
Just happened upon this while gleaning the comments. What a truly tough time you’re living through. I wish you every comfort and the very best possible outcome. Most of all I wish you strength. ❤️
{{{Hug}}}
Thumbs up for Henny Penny reference.
And I sure hope all her Rich Person problems get resolved.
Don't be jealous...Lawyers Guns & {{{Money}}} LOL
First world problems often seem bigger than they are. Like the time my yoga therapist was late for our private practice.
Xanax is bad for you. Stick with bourbon.
Take the fluoride out of the water and replace it with Xanax? That's genius
I hate the Republicans but can never ever vote for Democrats.
Hurray.
I know how you feel. A man without a party.........
I'm used to it, as a (small l) libertarian, but in this election we had a glimmer of hope that maybe some serious people actually understood the problems and would go about fixing them.
Nope.
Yep, they are always fighting & always at a standstill about everything except their perks..
I'm with you.
It's normal and sane to hate them both. They're two sides of the same coin and they're almost indistinguishable on every single actual political material issue that isn't culture war wedge-baiting to get the plebs to hate each other. The insane thing is that anybody votes for either of them. Or that people like Matt will still say the two parties "hate each other" decades after anybody on the planet is dumb enough to believe that. Their voters may hate each other, yeah, they're meant to. But the parties themselves? Tom and Jerry situation.
Well said!
Being designated the most hated person in the media beats the Nobel peace prize :-)
Brilliant.
It’s no secret where I stand these days. I’m an anti-Democrat. Not a conservative and I find it hard to vote republican (but I can still do it) yet this kinda stuff makes it so hard to care at all. It’s like wading into a pile of shit looking for your iPhone. It’s better to just get a new iPhone. I do disagree with Matt about the intent. If they are implying, or openly stating, that there will be potential legal action in the future, then they are suggesting to avoid that result, military members should disobey orders.
The point of the threat is to achieve a particular end. And it is dangerous because they are not being specific. God forbid some young progressive minded 20 year old from California refuse to follow a lawful order because it conflicts with their political parties position on something. That would go very BAD for them. They will get punished, and at best, dishonorably discharged. At worst, time in Leavenworth. That will be on their record their whole life. Slotkin will go on with her life. She will collect her paychecks, her pension, her benefits. She will be just fine. Don’t make the military personnel a pawn in this political game. There must be some limiting principle here. I’ve seen the democrats threaten everyone from the Supreme Court to the door guy at MaraLago. I’m not shocked, but please, not the military. They have a nasty job to do. Years ago when I was a soldier we were practicing clearing buildings and I was told that if we go into a room and someone starts shooting, we are to shoot back. Being a dumb, young enlisted smartass, I started throwing out hypotheticals. The answer was always to shoot back, not to hesitate or you could get all your guys killed. So eventually I asked, what if there’s a little kid between myself and the shooter? I was told that I was to shoot. It doesn’t matter if there’s a kid there or not. It doesn’t matter who’s there. Naturally I said I wouldn’t do that. I was told that the guy behind me coming through the door is someone’s kid too and I have a duty to protect him.
We glorify the military and we should because it’s often a nasty job. If we don’t glorify it, no one would do it and someone has to do it. It’s a hard life full of divorce, suffering, hard work. You can watch your buddies get killed or horribly wounded. Heck, it could be you who gets killed or lose a limb. Those folks need to be left alone and we need to protect them from politics.
If there was ever another civil war, the best way to decide it is to let congress fight it out on the real battlefield and let us watch from the sidelines. Last man or woman standing and all that.
I'd like to see Hillary and Trump battle it out in an arena with swords.
Can’t believe I’m the only one this made smile.
You're not........;o) There's a smile for ya!
It would be ugly, but fun to watch.
Cage Matches..I'd pay to watch..
"Slotkin will go on with her life. She will collect her paychecks, her pension, her benefits. She will be just fine." That's right, she would. And the soldier who listened to her and acted on her words? Not so much. Classic "luxury beliefs" in action right there.
Unless you're an actual fascist, which not many people really are, being anti-Democrat is a very normal thing and it's called being on the left. Why have people let themselves be psyopped out of this understanding, I genuinely do not know. The DNC are a far right authoritarian party. Yeah, we have two of them. If you're not a far right authoritarian, and most people aren't, you're not SUPPOSED to agree with either of them. Everyone knows it's fake that we're supposed to pick one or the other when neither of them are any different and neither of them agree with us on anything. Everyone knows that but everyone just does it anyway. I wish y'all would stop.
I will rerun this from an earlier posting of mine on a Racket News comment forum. It fits.
This is about Tribalism....but you have to understand what tribalism actually is. There is far more to it than you would think. It's an earlier and non-compassionate phase of human evolution. It disposes people to think and to see others in particular ways. Some claim that in this phase man lived in the "Reptile Brain". In other words, it was prior to the development of human empathy and human individualism.
Much of the Middle East, apart from Israel, is still tribal. They have brains which interpret life differently from the way a Western person's brain interprets life....and acts on it. The overlap would be between Cluster-B personalities in the West, with persons living in tribalism in the Middle East. Similar situation.
Unknown to most, outside of a few select Anthropologists and a Psychoanalyst or two....humanity can return to the tribalism stage. We can indeed go backwards.
Bit slow here just now, so I will add this link to a National Post (Canada) article today on the man who wrote and published the "Son of Hamas" book some years ago.
"'Son of Hamas' warns about Islamism's creeping hold on West:
Mosab Hassan Yousef says anti-Israel protesters are ‘taking advantage of Gaza’s tragedy ... using your freedoms to destroy your freedoms’"
https://nationalpost.com/news/son-of-hamas-warns-about-islamisms-creeping-hold-on-west
His story always struck me as very similar to the story of the eldest son of Jim Jones of the 1978 Jonestown tragedy. They were both the heirs to their psychopathic fathers' totalitarian plans. They both awakened against the odds, despite having been raised in this kind of environment. They both walked away. I call it having the courage to become an individual, as opposed to remaining a member of a hive-mind being driven by a cruel disturbed leader and his herd.
From the words of the "Son of Hamas" author:
-- What I’m trying to tell you is that the entire region is ruled by tribalism. This is not only unique for the Palestinians. It’s a death culture. They just find in Israel a common enemy, because they are Jews. But practically, if they don’t have the Jews to kill, they will kill each other.
-- He called Islamists “savages” that cannot be negotiated with. He said they perpetuated an “inverted narrative” that used projection to accuse Israel of genocide and colonization, but they were guilty of those very crimes.
Couldn't have said it better myself. Actually, I have been discussing the detailed concepts of tribalism on this Substack over a long while.
Tribalism was an earlier form of human development, before a newer and better development set-in about 5000 years ago in Mesopotamia under a particular enlightened ruler, Sargon of Akkad. He put tribalism aside, recognizing there was no empathy in this stage of human evolution -- just continual hatred and killing.. And that there might be a better way. Previously, anyone outside one's tribe had been considered "the other" and therefore the enemy.
This is the way that cults and totalitarian political groups still behave....they have gone backwards in evolution to the no-empathy stage.
After Sargon introduced the concept of human empathy to his people, it took hold. This eventually spread to Judaism and then to the emerging Christianity (which had similar values). In fact, there is a theory that a move to the idea of "practicing empathy" actually helped to build a new function in the human brain to reflect this.
Most of the Middle East then, and now, has stayed in the no-empathy stage. Might explain why the values throughout so much of the ME (except Israel) will never tally with classic Western values.
"But practically, if they don’t have the Jews to kill, they will kill each other."
Didn't we see that. as soon as Trump's peace agreement was signed? Hamas executions in the street..... of other Palestinians.
Tribalism is the basis of what we now call totalitarianism. Especially when the tribal leader is a dark Cluster-B personality. You see this in the WOKE-folk....gone back to the dark side of tribalism.
If we allow Western civilization and values to be lost, we lose mankind's most important evolutionary leap to date. Massive tragedy.
Yes, but those were reportedly collaborators.
Well, that is what Hamas said. Can we believe them? Even if these execution victims were actual collaborators, I would think that being kicked out of Gaza could have been acceptable, although not execution. But totalitarians promote death cultures
The concept being played out here, to my mind, is that when the designated class of scapegoats dries up -- as in potential Jewish victims no longer being readily available -- a tribalist/totalitarian group still needs to psychologically project their own sins outward onto someone else, and then punish them for these fabricated wrongdoings. Therefore, they have to designate a new and available class of scapegoats in order to do this. So they look around and say. "Aha! We will use 'collaborators' for the purpose of projecting our own sins outward."
Saying they were ridding themselves of "collaborators" and making it look justified in this way was a predictable trick. The Soviets used to do the same thing when they were finished with their own "Useful Idiots"; they designated them as the new enemy class and then got rid of them.
I neither know nor care whether Hamas is lying. All I know is I’m tired of sending money to Israel, Hamas, Egypt, Jordan, and whoever else over there, while reading about them slaughtering each other — especially civilians. None of this is any of our concern. We have plenty of issues here to deal with.
"that was Israel that did it"....
Ironic that most of today's left operates on a lizard brain response in which (so called) empathy for the poor, dispossessed, or otherwise "othered" is the factor which determines their tribal dividing lines.
That empathy is entirely false. Just meant to give them the image they want.
I think it's real for them. It's just the level of empathy an 8 year old possesses.
It is part of the ideology they adopt to be part of the WOKE herd. I don't think it occurs to them to actually live it out.
Much like the "Climate Change" eco types at WEF who tell you they want badly to save the earth, while flying private planes everywhere. And using more resources for a luxury lifestyle than a small nation does.
Very interesting.
Thank you for the information, and the link to an interesting article, and person. I’m ordering his books now. Sounds like a very brave man.
The way forward is through.
I would recommend reading how the Son of Hamas and Jim Jones' eldest son handled it.
That’s nice. We are all descendants of Men who survived, they didn’t survive by reading up on it… and DGAF.
The lawyers may follow their customs and Men shall follow ours.
But if you fail to read up on it....as I do.....you are going to have to learn the hard way. Which is not very bright.
Why re-invent the wheel? We are in a bad predicament in 2025 in the West. Learn from those who put in the blood, sweat and tears to work this out. Doing so is one of the valuable concepts of Western civilization.
Read ? This is Do.
Enough.
Happy Thanksgiving
Robert Bly talked about overcoming this: https://livingpurposeinstitute.com/robert-bly-on-the-three-brains/
"...some of the conclusions and speculations made by the American neurologist, Paul MacLean. The gist of MacLean’s thought is that we do not have one brain, but three. His map of the head isn’t psychological, as Freud’s Ego, Id and Superego, but geographical – the three brains are actually in the head, and brain surgeons have known for a long time what they look like. MacLean’s contribution has been to suggest that each of these brains is to some extent independent. During evolution, the body often reshaped the body-fins, for example, in us, turned utterly into arms, but the forward momentum in evolution was apparently so great that the brain could not allow itself the time to reform – it simply added.
The reptile brain is still intact in the head. Known medically as the limbic node, it is a horseshoe shaped organ located in the base of the skull. The job of the reptile brain appears to be the physical survival of the organism in which it finds itself. Should danger or enemies come near, an alarm system comes into play, and the reptile brain takes over from the other brains – it takes what we might call “executive power.”
Thanks, Anne. Yes, I know of Paul MacLean's work. Sometimes considered controversial at this point, though I think his general concepts began this train of thought..
Iain McGilchrist has a few things to add by now, as do several other researchers. Stephen Porges for one. And I think that Julian Jaynes stumbled on some semblance of this back in the 70s. As did Lucian Levy-Bruhl in earlier years.
I wish I had read these authors’ works—thanks for the heads up, Anne and A.!
In the Robert Bly article you linked, there is the statement that "Fair suggests that what Freud meant by the 'Id' was the reptile and mammal brain".
I would agree that Freud's concept of the Id tallies with the cold-blooded "reptile brain". I posted about it here some months ago.
Freud's concept of the Id, to my understanding, is also analogous to the addiction state or to the Cluster-B personality disorders. No empathy.
Tribal peoples live in the Id. They have no development of the Superego, which is where empathy and morality live. The rules that a tribalist follows are simply about loyalty to their leader and herd, because this means survival. Most of them cannot imagine the Golden Rule.
BTW, I had not heard of Porges work, however, l looked him up & heartedly support his focus on the vagus nerve. I came to its import through personal somatic experience in Vedic teachings/practice -- a game changer for the nervous system.
Yes, it is. Stephen Porges was the researcher who introduced this theory to the West through his work. He has written some good books about it.
🎯. . . and I ran into so much of C-Bs in government. Took me awhile to figure it out as so much of their chatter was empathy/sympathy speak. For instance, touting "it's for the children" when "it" was really about the Benjamins for the adults. Challenge the request too much & the underlying personalities would emerge. Many cloaked in the loudest "concerns for humanity" in whatever field they operated. One referred to by daily behavior as: "loves humanity/hates people!"
In these times, the psychopathy at higher levels is frightening & less hidden!
Psychopathy and pathological Narcissism is growing because swathes of society have jettisoned the usual moral structures. And the concept of a God. It moves them to the Id end of the Id/Ego/Superego spectrum (Freud). Where the Cluster-B personality types live.
Not that anyone needs to be a perfect angel and Superego. They just need to live in the balanced middle.
Israel is one of the tribes. Other than that , yes, spot on.
No, Israel is not tribal in the way I am referring to. The Jews, in fact, were one of the first groups to evolve out of the tribalist mentality. Which may be one reason there is so much well-honed intelligence amongst that ethnic community in general.
I think you are right.
I think your proposition that the Jews grew out of tribalism is blatantly proven wrong by a simple observation of their history. Jews have lived as a minority diaspora for centuries and have for the most part remained steadfastly opposed to integration with their wider societies. No, many, perhaps most Jews are still very much tribal people.
For non-integration with wider societies, I think you might take a look at Islam.
Ian, I see that you have not read through my posts, where I defined tribalism. And I said it is not what many people think it is.
Your mistake here is in misunderstanding the term. Jews are very non-tribal. They were the first major ethnic group to advance to this new state of mental awareness/evolution, approximately 5000 years ago. Along with certain Mesopotamians. Leaving tribalism and its worldview behind was what allowed Jews to advance so much farther than most Middle Eastern groups.
You need to go back and read what tribalism actually is.
Tribal definition: Having or showing strong in-group loyalty and often a negative view of outsiders.
or
of, relating to, or characteristic of a community of people having shared ancestry, culture, and language.
Jews are a tribal people by both definitions. I could care less what insane definition you came up with yourself to suit your purposes.
I see that you just want to indulge in anti-semitism. Facts or no facts. We get a few of your sort on these forums.
Anti-semitism means that the person spouting it has a lot of personal evolving to do. You better get busy.
Maybe Israel you see as a tribe because their neighbors would like to kill them all. Otherwise, they would go to their politics....which is about like current America. After they had one assassination. We had many ones.
Same old discussion I’m sure many many people have had where one person points out the modern aggressive and colonialist behavior of Israel. If one is to be honest about the current situation one should admit the history of illegal settlements and aggressive land grabs. Is the Islamic response to this also unhinged? Why yes absolutely. But Israel is not white dove.
This is my field, Ian, so I hope I have it right! Experience says that I do.
Your definition of tribalism is a tendency for a culture to have a valence of reptilian in-group thinking? I invite you to peruse any number of videos of Israelis displaying just such behavior about the recent war in Gaza.
" We can indeed go backwards." One step forward and always something going backwards. Try Hamilton and Burr...or Adams and Jefferson etc etc.
Happy Thanksgiving - Keep it up.
you are a rock star. keep up the good work.